Saltwater for Tears
by Countess Verona Dracula
Summary: Now that the business with the Acheron is done, the Surprise gets involved in a more deadly affair: one that threatens their beliefs and Stephen’s heart. [slight POTC Crossover] [StephenOC]
1. The Lone Star Running

Disclaimer- I own nothing but that which my mind has spawned.

Summary- Now that the business with the Acheron is done, the Surprise gets involved in a more deadly affair- one that threatens their beliefs and Stephen's heart. slight POTC Crossover

A/N-- I saw _Master and Commander_ and fell instantly in love! I also saw a place to stick an OC of mine in from POTC right away. This isn't going to be a 'heavy' crossover- you won't be seeing _the Black Pearl_ tangling with the _Surprise_ -but since my OC is from that universe and some characters from it will be mentioned, I thought I should list it as such.

This is sort of a sequel to the POTC quintet I'm writing with a friend- but we actually haven't finished writing it yet, even though we know where it's going, so this is ahead of it. I just got so excited writing it I couldn't wait to post it! There's enough info for it to stand on its own, so don't worry about reading the two stories we've already posted. If you're interested, though, they're under my friend's profile (_silver wolf of the night_).

This story is going to be an odd blend of movieverse and bookverse- I'll probably make references to things that happened before the Far Side of the World (which is the eighth or ninth book in the series) but since I haven't gotten that far yet I'm going off of what the movie says in some cases. It does say that Jack is married to Sophie, but since it makes no mention of Diana Villiers (damn her eyes) we'll all pretend Stephen romanced but never married her.

Enjoy!

_For Merry, my Black Wolf, who was there from the vaguest beginnings.

* * *

_

Chapter One  
The Lone Star Running  
_in which Stephen Maturin has a singularly perplexing day_

The crew in the topgallants had first noticed the ship an hour before. Since then everyone had been on edge, waiting for colors to appear. Bets as to it belonged to were rampant, and no one was betting or even hoping it was friendly. With the memory of the _Acheron_ fresh in every man's mind even weeks after they parted in Valparaiso, the Surprises were feeling invincible. Whatever she was, they could take her. Lucky Jack would make sure of it.

Then again, no one had bet on what did run up the mast.

"Pirates?" Stephen Maturin asked incredulously, looking at Jack Aubrey over his glasses. "I'm no expert, but aren't they rather obsolete?"

"Yes, but there's a ship on the horizon flying a Jolly Roger. The pirates themselves might be obsolete, but their ship is our class. Very close to the Surprise's age, I believe. Be ready."

"As always."

So Stephenmade ready. He put cotton in his ears and laid out all his tools and threw sand on the floor and then did all a surgeon could in the face of a looming battle- waited for the shooting to start.

Then there was his own private battle against broken bones and flowing blood and his new surgeon's mate, who was no more competent than Higgins. _Do good surgeon's mates actually exist?_, he wondered. Halfway through splinting a broken leg, he decided to put the question to the captain's table when they dined next. His mind was already that far ahead of him. He, like the rest of the crew, trusted Jack Aubrey to get them out of whatever mess was coming.

His mind caught up abruptly with the rest of the world when he noticed that no more patients had been sent down to him.

"Aren't there any more wounded?" He shouted to one of his patients. He had expected a deluge, the memory of the _Acheron_ as fresh on his mind as it was in anyone else's.

"Not that I saw." The man's returning shout was suddenly too loud. It was as silent as it ever got in a ship.

"What happened to the cannon fire?" Stephen asked. His only answer was confused shouts.

Sometimes Stephen hated being the surgeon. It was unbearable to wait for the shooting to start.

There was a brief clash of weapons and fevered shouts, and then feet crashing about on deck. One or two more shots followed. One more man was sent below, but there was nothing Stephen could do for him. He gave him a dose of laudanum and let his shipmates sit nearby, then listened attentively for more sounds of bloodshed. None came. There was just the sound of creaking wood and shifting canvas, muffled orders shouted and muffled feet obeying.

A little lost, Stephen sent his other three patients- who would live to fight another day, praise be to the Doctor and to God -back to their duties. He packed up his instruments and was just about to go on deck and inquire after the course of the battle when Mr. Mowett appeared at the doorway accompanied by Mr. Blakeney.

"Well, what happened?"

"It was the damnedest thing, Doctor," Mowett said with a bewildered shake of his head. "This frigate, _the Lone Star Running_ she was called, pulled right across our stern and barely even fired an entire broadside at us. She was close enough to board, took every shot we threw at her, and then twelve or so of her people come over and board swinging on lines like monkeys. We took 'em down easy, but about half got back by using some of our lines. Then she just sailed away before we knew what to do. We've begun to chase, but she was fast and she has the weather gauge."

Stephen shook his head. "I really don't see what is so strange about it. Perhaps she thought twice upon seeing the _Surprise_, decided a man of war was no great prize and sailed off."

"But why send her men to certain death like that?" Mowett asked.

"I'm certainly not the person to ask." Stephen smiled quietly. "If there has been no more bloodshed, I will join you in heading to the captain's cabin to hear what he thinks of this strange incident."

"Actually, we have one more patient for you. A prisoner who got hit with shrapnel in the ribs." Blakeney said.

"Send him in."

"Well, actually, Doctor... it's a woman."

Stephen had faced a lot of surprising days in his life, and this one was starting to rank pretty high. Pirates were one thing. That could've made an amusing tale. But a _female _pirate?

He was hardly given time to react to this, because then she was shown in. She moved over to the table on her own, limping a bit on her right leg. She was not very tall, but she was well built with strong shoulders and a figure that suggested she wasn't wearing a corset. Her attire was male- a billowing white blouse and black breeches, with boots on over that. Her hair was bound up against her head and covered with a blue bandana, so it was impossible to tell its color. She didn't look much older than twenty.

Stephen cleared his throat as she sat down. Prisoner or no, the niceties begged to be observed.

"What is your name?"

"Coraline Jacqueline Turner."  
"And where are you injured, Miss Turner?"

"Cora, if you please, and I have some wood slivers stuck in my left side, along my ribs."

"You're English?" Stephen asked in surprise at hearing her accent.

"Let's clear something up now. My parents are both children of English emigres and while I was born into a life of piracy I am not a whore." She sighed and lay back on his table. "There. Those are usually the first two concerns of anyone who meets me. Now I'd like this shrapnel out, please."

Stephen was taken aback not so much by her speech, but by her eyes. They were wide, soft grey-blue in color, but her gaze was strong and forthright in a way that reminded him oddly of Jack. This Coraline Jacqueline Turner, Cora if you please, knew what she was about.

"Lift your shirt, please." He said when he remembered to speak.

She lifted the thin linen thing without a qualm, despite her assurance that she was not a whore, revealing surprisingly pale skin. Just at the curve of her waist and extending upward he could see the long silvers of wood lodged under the skin. They hadn't gone in deep. It would still take a bit of time to get them out; doing so would cause more splinters to come off of the larger ones, and some cloth had gotten caught in there too.

_And I should know what that's like._

"And how did you get these?"

"I was part of the boarding party. A ball from my ship struck the rail as I was going over and the wood got me. I was so stunned I fell to the deck and no one noticed me until the others were dead and the_ Running_ sailed away."

"I'm sorry for the loss of your comrades."

"We knew they would die." She said. Stephen tried to look her in the eye but she looked away. The words struck a cord in him; the disinterest with which she said them hid a familiar discontent. It was the sort of concealed displeasure that led to mutinies.

"Relax," He told her. "This could take a few minutes."

She snorted at this and just kept her shirt out of the way.

As it always did, the world narrowed down to only to Stephen's surgery. Jack was right- it was his prerogative to view this world through a microscope, and Stephen was glad of the privilege. Gradually all of the splinters were removed; a little blood welled out of the wounds, and Cora would occasionally suck in her breath and let it out again, but otherwise the world was utterly still. Then life resumed, with all its niggling complexities.

"Many thanks, Doctor...?"

"Maturin. Stephen Maturin."

"Thank you." She held out of her hand and he took it. Then she released him and turned to the two guards at the door who had appeared while Stephen tended to her wounds. "I suppose it's time to go to the brig, isn't it? Clap 'em in irons."

They took her away and later Stephen dined alone and read a bit. Much later that night, small details of the incident would come to him; the fact that her skin was soft, that when they shook hands he could see a pirate brand on her wrist, that he had been oddly conscious of the pulse in his hand after she released it, and that although she was the first woman he'd touched in months he hadn't even noticed the curve of one breast revealed as she moved her shirt or the sway of her hips as she walked away.

Stephen sighed. It was time to end this long and rather perplexing day.

* * *

A/N-- Well, I hope this fic is off to a good (if short) start. I've already written the better part of this fic, so if I get a couple of positive reviews I'll post the second chapter tomorrow! 


	2. A History of Piracy

A/N- This probably isn't the best chapter in thiswhole fic,but it's necessary to bring the realm of the POTC quintet I'm co-authoring and the realm of MC together. I swear by Stephen's flightless birds that this story will get more interesting. I hope you bear with me through the boring bits. 

For anyone who happens to read the Wolfe-Starre quintet at some point: I changed the story of Black Wolf and Lone Star dying and coming back to life to going missing for years, as the Forgotten Isle didn't fit the realm of Master and Commander. Just wanted to avoid some confusion on that point!

The Corelli Adagio I mention in this chapter is number 7 on the movie soundtrack, for anyone who wants to hear it. For those who don't have the soundtrack, Jack and Stephen play it together right after Jack announces they're going to the Galapagos.

* * *

Chapter Two  
A History of Piracy  
_in which we learn the story of one Coraline Jacqueline Turner_

"A fine day for sailing, isn't it Doctor?" Barrett Bonden called from the helm as Stephen passed him.

"For sailing? I wouldn't know. But it is a very fine day." He remarked, removing his hat. He contemplated throwing it out to sea, as Jack had often recommended, because the whimsy of the day seemed just right for it. Instead he walked to the taffrail and settled himself there, watching the dim shadows of sharks following them.

"We have no bodies for you today, I'm afraid." He said. A few minutes ebbed away, and then Jack was at his side.

"There you are, Stephen."

"If a captain is meant to know everything about his vessel, how is it that you never seem to know where I am?"

"I'm not unaware of where you are. It's just that I'm continually surprised at where I find you."

Taking the malformed piece of wit in stride, Stephen waited for Jack to continue.

"Would you join me in the cabin for lunch and perhaps some music? I have two bells or so to spare before the prisoner is brought to me."

"I don't see why not." Stephen replied, rising and following Jack to his cabin. "How has the crew reacted to her presence? The prisoner's, I mean."

"None of us like it. There's only one woman at sea, and that's the ship. Add another and everyone ends up caught by the lee."

"You liked it well enough when Sophie came aboard those years ago, on the _Polycrest_."

Jack chuckled a bit at that.

"She was different. None of the men would dare touch her. This one just might be in trouble if we don't keep her locked in the brig. By all rights, I should've hung her before we set sail again. She _is_ a pirate."

"But she is also a woman, and I'd imagine that's where you've reached an impasse."

"Yes. You should've seen her, Stephen. She moved like the finest seaman up in the riggings. No hesitation, completely surefooted. It's prodigious strange, a woman sailor. I intend to find out what exactly it is we're dealing with, here."

"I take it we lost her ship?"

"...yes."

"Never fear, joy. I'm certain you'll catch her soon enough." Stephen soothed him as they reached the great cabin.

Killick's food and his familiar grumbling came and went, and soon Jack and Stephen moved with one mind to their instruments. They couldn't settle on a piece though, instead wandering off in their own thoughts and into different melodies. In the end it created an interesting juxtaposition as different worlds touched, overlapped, broke off, and remained changed afterwards. It was an expression of both companionship and individuality.

At the very end they came together on a Corelli Adagio they hadn't touched on in a while. It had never been Jack's particular favorite, as it didn't fit his bounding, joyous nature. He played it only because Stephen enjoyed its quiet reflections and easy rhythms.

"You just like it because the violin does all the work," He had remarked once.

Right as they reached the end, there was a polite knock on the door. Shortly thereafter, Killick and two marines entered. Between them was the prisoner.

_Cora_, Stephen reminded himself, although it was harder to think of her that way now. When she told him her name she was still covered in the sweat of battle and her hands were free. Now she had a closed, guarded look about her, and manacles on her wrists. Her bandana remained untouched, and he caught himself wondering at what her hair might actually look like.

"Have a seat, if you please." Jack said, putting down his violin. Stephen continued to clean his 'cello while a chair was brought.  
"Gentlemen, you may wait outside."

"I believe I'll stay." He said, laying his cello aside. His tale of a female pirate would be much more credible if he had a firsthand account to supplement it with.

Cora took a seatat an angle to them and waited. Once the marines were gone, there was no point in delaying.

"What is your name?" Jack asked.

"Coraline Jacqueline Turner," She said with the same precision as before. "But I prefer Cora. And that was a fine Corelli you were just playing."

Both men were set on their heels.

"Do you play, Miss Turner?"

"I've been playing the violin by ear since I was young. Corelli has never been my favorite, though. A movement from Vivaldi's Four Seasons would do the trick for a day like this, I should think."

"This is a surprise." Jack chuckled.

"Thank you, sir. But we didn't come here to discuss music." There was a sad sort of look in her eyes.

"No indeed, but don't think of it as an interrogation. That would be most unpleasant, and never let it be said that the Navy was unkind to their prisoners."

"No indeed." She responded, the sadness hardening to ice for just a moment and then melting again. Jack, as usual, didn't notice this interplay.

"How old are you, Miss Turner?"

"You should never ask a woman her age, and I don't see how this is relevant in any case."

"It is very much relevant. I have brought you here to decide for myself how and why a woman became a pirate."

"Is there any reason I shouldn't be?"

"Well, it certainly makes my job difficult. You see, your being a woman makes it much harder for me to decide your punishment. I don't like to think of a woman under the cat or at the gallows, God forbid, yet I can't simply let you go."

"That might be better for both our interests, Captain." Cora said, leaning forward slightly. "What you say is true. It is difficult to punish me. I must beg you to leave me at the next port. Put me in jail if you wish, there's not a jail that's been built I can't escape from. But I tell you now that every moment I remain on this ship puts you and your crew in danger."

"What do you mean by that?"

She sat back, looking uneasy, and wouldn't meet their eyes.

"I'm bound by my word to my captain not to say anything more. You'll just have to take my word that if you leave me at the next port you'll be much better off, even if I still pay the price of disobeying an order."

"Speak plainly, Miss Turner. I can protect you if you tell me what's going on here."

"I don't think you could. My captain is also my mother."

"Two women on one ship?" Jack looked rather like a dead fish, his eyes wide open and an expression of breathless confusion on his face.

"Surely the one negates the other." Stephen murmured to himself. Cora heard him and, for an instant, he fancied she flashed a smile in his direction.

"Four women, actually. Myself, my mother, my sister, and Anamaria, who is close to a lieutenant, I guess."

"Your whole family is on that ship?" Jack asked, recovering.

"Mostly, yes. I was born into piracy. I was born at sea, as a matter of fact. Even my grandparents were pirates, and my great-grandfather on my father's side." Before either of the men could say anything, Cora shook her head. "I beg of you, let me tell the whole story. When I do my request will make much more sense."

"Very well." Jack said, relaxing against his chair. Stephen plucked at his 'cello's strings as Cora began artlessly the task of condensing an entire life.

* * *

_Before I tell you this story you should know that it doesn't have a happy ending. It isn't one of the tales they sell in little pamphlets in England about high seas adventure. People call pirates freeloaders and criminals without knowing our struggles. We are as human as they are._

_My grandfather, Caylyn, was born in England and pressed into the Navy. The sea was to his liking, but the rules and regulations weren't, and so once they got to the Caribbean he deserted along with two other fellows, Hank and Jack. He and Hank changed their last names to Starre and Wolfe, but Jack remained Jack Sparrow to the end of his days._

_Soon after deserting, Caylyn met his wife Coraline- yes, I'm named for her -and they had three children: Nathaniel, James, and my mother, Arlen. Coraline died giving birth to my mother, and Nathaniel died in battle long before I was born.  
_  
_The three men worked together carefully until they built a small empire on the seas. My mother grew up onboard their three ships: **the Black Pearl**, **the Wolf of the Sea**, and **the Lone Star Running**. You've met the second ship under that name; the first caught fire and exploded. It was named for my mother, who is called Lone Star, although she's never really said where she got the name. Her best friend was Hank's daughter Liash, better known as Black Wolf. _

They were the princesses of the ships, growing up with no mothers but three boatloads of loving admirers. They shared everything from food to injuries to more than one prison cell. They went missing for years and found their way back home. When they were eighteen they even fell in love together, with the Turner boys- Matthew and Michael Turner, that is -apprentice blacksmiths in Port Royale. They were born in the Caribbean but their parents were from England, and they too had pirate blood on their father's side.

_Here's the important part of my tale, the part I won't skip out on: for all these years they had had one Commodore James Norrington of the British Navy following them._ ("I've heard of the man. He's a legend in the Navy for the worst of reasons. I think I know the rest of this story." Jack interrupted. "Well I don't," Stephen said. "So let's hear it from her.") _Norrington made finding and killing us all his first priority after the humiliation Jack Sparrow had dealt him time and time again. He was sick with hate. He even had a ship built specially for catching us: the **HMS Deliverance**. At this time he knew patience back home was running thin; he needed a prize. But what could he do against a group of tight-knit ships so effective they were called the Deadly Trio?_

_When my mother was to be married to Michael, something came over Black Wolf. She and my mother had a terrible row on the day of the wedding, and they were barely on the way to patching it up when the ceremony came around. That was when Norrington struck. He and his sailors opened fire, shooting Black Wolf in the side when he knew there was no physician handy. He gave them a terrible ultimatum: watch Black Wolf die before them, or let her be taken into his custody, never to return. My mother wanted death for her friend before capture, but she was overruled._

_I was born nine months later, and my first memories are of my mother crying at night, yelling at my father or the hands on deck, screaming and pounding on walls. The Deadly Trio was fracturing at the seams without Black Wolf, and for three years Norrington bided his time. _

He followed our movements, using Black Wolf's knowledge, and caught us at a raid. He made sure Lone Star got one good look at Black Wolf and then the rest fell into place. She became as relentless in her hate as Norrington. She swore a blood oath to bring back Black Wolf and kill him with her own two hands.

_When it came to it, she did not kill Norrington. They met out at sea, the **Deliverance** trapped by the **Wolf **on one side and the **Running** on the other. After two broadsides the ship was barely standing and its gun crew didn't know where to turn. Norrington refused to strike his colors. Though my mother was due to give birth to my sister Ashli any day, she went with the boarding party. The battle ended with everyone pointing a gun at someone else- Norrington at Black Wolf, his lieutenant Gillette at Lone Star, a crewmember at Jack, and Jack at Norrington._

_Just one shot was fired. One shot, and their whole world stopped. In the end, it was Norrington who fell, and Jack's gun who smoked. _

Black Wolf was home, but Norrington had abused her mercilessly and her memory was half gone. What's more, even as she remembered who she was, she still longed to go back to the life she lived with the Navy. She was never the same pirate as before. _She and my mother were never the same friends as before, either. They argued constantly. Black Wolf didn't like that my sister and I were being raised in a life of violence, as the Navy put more heat on us than ever before. _

The Trio was forced to go its separate ways in '85, lying low at their home ports and living off the wealth they had accumulated throughout the years. _So I grew up at sea, barely raising my head, my eyes always on the horizon in the terrible fear of seeing the Union Jack. I know nothing but the press of wind and tide and the running out of guns.  
_  
_Then in '99, when I turned nineteen, my mother called them back together again. She was sick of being forced to hide. She longed for the life she had before, the golden days when the world was her oyster and Black Wolf was at her side. She planned one last desperate strike at the Navy. Their presence in the Caribbean was greatly diminished. After all, there had been a revolution in France and Napoleon's star was on the horizon. (Curses from Jack at this) Only one man remained who cared about the Deadly Trio: Gillette, Norrington's faithful lieutenant. He never forgave or forgot us._

_He was currently in command of a small garrison on the coast of Jamaica, and my mother planned to attack the fort, take it, and kill him. With him out of the way, she felt they could reign once more over the seas. She had always intended for her family to be an unshakable dynasty. She raised my sister and I the same way she was raised: by the Pirate's Code and by the laws of the sea. She expected us to continue the line. She still does, in fact._

_It was an impossible plan and everyone knew it. But Lone Star had always been the princess, even more so than Black Wolf, and none of us had the heart to say no. So we took part in the ruse, hoping that halfway through she would come to her senses and realize what she had done. But everything went so horribly, horribly wrong_. (Here her voice broke. "We can wait-" Jack began to say. "No," She interjected. "The retelling can't be any worse than it was to live it)

_Gillette struck back harder than we thought he would. Our crews were slaughtered. My sister and I were forced to leap from the highest battlement of the fort and nearly drowned in the attempt. We awoke to the sound of the **Wolf** exploding. My mother was knocked unconscious by debris, and only because of that were we able to sail away. The** Black Pearl** was damaged beyond repair and sank only a few miles away. Black Wolf, Jack and Hank were mortally injured. They did not survive the night.  
_  
_My mother has never been the same since then, and the fact that my father died just last year hasn't improved her. She's become a friend of the cat and her hatred for the Navy burns brighter than ever. She will stop at nothing to bring me back.

* * *

_

"Please, Captain. Just leave me at the next port."

"I couldn't do that even if I wanted to, Miss Turner. You are an enemy of the Crown."

Cora heaved a sigh and looked away.

"You know, you think we pirates are so different from you, and yet we're not. We have our honor and our codes to keep. They're just different than yours."

"And that's where we have our trouble, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so."

Jack stood.

"You will be sent something to eat later, Miss Turner. At the moment I need time to think about all you have told me."

Jack walked away to call for the marines, leaving Stephen was still sitting there, somewhat awkwardly. Cora turned to him and cocked her head, the look in her grey-blue eyes close to accusatory. "What are you looking at, Doctor Maturin?"

"I'm looking at you, Miss Turner."

The marines took her away after that, and she looked back at him only once. Stephen didn't think of her for the rest of the day; a new recruit had fallen from the rigging and his arm needed setting.

When he did think of her it was nighttime and he was alone in his cabin, working over a different section of the Corelli he'd played with Jack that morning. In the middle of the trickiest section, his hands halfway down the length of his 'cello so that he was almost embracing it, feeling its every vibration in his chest like a lover's hum, he thought of what Cora had said. The brig wasn't far from his orlop. He looked about a bit before edging his 'cello closer to the door and changing slowly to the Spring movement from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. He smiled as he felt through the endpin the dull thud of a boot beating time.

* * *

A/N- Well, that's Cora. Let me know what you guys think of her! And I have absolutely no idea if the brig is close to the orlop, but I'm sure we'll all survive. :-) 

For anyone who missed it, Cora is indeed Will and Elizabeth's granddaughter. I know that _Dead Man's Chest_ left some stuff up in the air, but our POTCstories are kind of AU anyway.

Anyone who can guess what movie the last dialogue of the chapter actually comes from will get a dedication in my next chapter. Thanks to last chapter's reviewer (**FuschiaII**) and to anyone else who happened to read it!


	3. The Second Coming

A/N-- Whew, stuff actually _happens_in this chapter! I hope you're all pleased! 

For anyone who wondered what movie the lines in last chapter were from, it was _the Last of the Mohicans_, a story set during the French and Indian War in America. It remains one of my most favorite movies. Ironically, the main female character is named Cora! I'd heartily recommend it to anyone who likes historical epic romance type movies.

* * *

Chapter Three  
The Second Coming  
_in which the enemy is engaged anew_

Days slipped by and the August sun blazed down on the deck, chasing everyone who had no duties inside. Stephen found himself once again in Jack's cabin that morning, but it was too hot to even contemplate playing once he'd dragged himself there.

"Have you decided what to do about Cora? Miss Turner, I mean." He asked as Jack was taking a drink.

The captain heaved a sigh and drained the rest of his cup.

"I'm tempted to take her to port and parole her, but I can't let her go until I understand what she meant about betraying her captain. She's here for a reason- why else would she be sent over as part of some prodigious strange boarding party? No," He sighed again. "I don't know what to do about her."

"Has she even been out of the brig since you talked to her?"

"No."

"Why not, joy? Surely she could do with some air after five days down there."

"She's a woman on board a ship with nearly two hundred men who've seen maybe six women other women in the course of three months. I think she could do with safety more than with fresh air."

"True enough, but if I am with her on deck, no harm would come to her, correct? I could try and discover what these mysterious orders she has are."

"That would be just the thing, Stephen." Jack adopted his customary smile, as bright now as it was years before when they first met. "Lord knows I'd be near insanity being trapped in the brig like her, especially after living a whole life at sea. Go down and tell the marines on guard that she's to go with you under my orders."

Cora herself was more surprised by this turn of events than by the marines, who stood aside readily for the doctor. She crept out slowly and held out her hands for the manacles to come off, then eyed him with a healthy dose of caution.

"Where are we going?"

"The captain thought that you might want some fresh air, and I am to accompany you on deck for as long as you wish."

"Many thanks, Doctor."

"Stephen. If I am to call you by your Christian name, you could at least use mine."

She rewarded him with a small smile at that, and followed him onto the deck.

"There's nothing quite like the Caribbean in August." She said with a stretch, utterly ignorant of the stares of the men on deck. "How is the crew doing with the heat?"

"We cope as best we can. I myself grew up in Spain, so it is no stranger to me. Although this heat is much wetter, I should think."

"Spain? Your accent makes no more sense than mine."

"I'm half Irish and half Catalan, actually."

She took this in with a nod, moving ahead of him within a few steps. From behind he could see a few dark, curling strands of hair falling from her bandana. He wanted to continue their conversation, but the sight of them had distracted him utterly. He'd seen women's hair done up in a thousand different ways, covered by wigs and bedecked with jewels, but the sight had never compelled him as much as Cora's hidden hair.

She reached the starboard rail soon, not far from the helm, and stood there staring across the sea. She glanced back at him, and only then did Stephen remember to follow her.

"Does the captain intend to put into port any time soon?"

"I wouldn't be the person to ask."

"You seem close to him."

"Yes, but I have as much knowledge of the sea as a tortoise has of flying."

"The sea is all I know." She responded. She was sure to begin carefully when she went to speak again. "So if you don't know about our sailing plans, I take it you don't know about the captain's plans for me."

"I am certain he won't hang you, but beyond that I don't know."

Silence once more. She leaned on the rail for a moment, staring at the water, then turned back to him.

"It was kind of you to bring me up here, Stephen, but it would be better if I went back to the brig. We both came here hoping to learn something from each other, but neither of us is going to budge. It would be better to simply call this match a draw."

Stephen would've loved to contradict her, keep her on deck just a little bit longer, but he couldn't. Every word she said was true.

So he took her back below deck and then returned to his orlop. Jack came by later to ask how his turn about the deck went.

"She called my bluff before I even began it. She asked to be taken back to the brig." Stephen shook his head and toyed with the samples he brought back with him from the Galapagos. "There is something about her manner, Jack. She may not be willing to tell us about her orders, but she clearly doesn't like them either. There may yet be a way to turn her against her captain."

"Although the fact that it's her mother does make it a sight harder."

"Or it could be all the easier."

Later that night he went back up on the deck and noticed that something in the air had changed. Belligerent clouds hung in the distant sky and the sea seemed a little more restless.

"It's hurricane season here, I'm afraid." Jack grumbled as they stood at the bow, watching the clouds. "We must stop off at the nearest port and take on food and water, then make a run for it. We'll make it clear of the Caribbean before any real storm comes at us."

So it was that they decided to put in at Georgetown, a small port not far from Brazil. Stephen remembered Cora asking if they'd be putting into port anytime soon and debated about whether or not he should tell her where they were going. On the one hand, it could set off the very trap he and Jack were trying to avoid. On the other, giving her what she wanted might in turn make her more willing to give them what they wanted.

Stephen waited until they docked at Georgetown two days later and most of the crew was off, including Jack. Earlier, when he asked if he might take Cora up on deck again once they docked, the captain had reacted with laughter.

"Is she one of your animals, Stephen? Take her out of her cage whenever you like, so long as you keep an eye on her."

Night had fallen when he went to get her, and they both breathed a sigh of relief at the coolness in the air.

"That's the wonderful thing about the heat," She said, moving to where she stood before at the starboard rail. "Once it gets to night everything is so cool and still."

"Are we to discuss the weather again? I could start with a discourse on Ireland's various rains."

"I wouldn't mind, but I doubt that's why you brought me up here." She tipped her head back, ignoring the silken black water below them for the velvety sky above. Only patches were visible. "We're going to get ourselves caught in a right squall, if you ask me." She remarked.

"That's why Captain Aubrey had us dock here. He intends to outrun the storm, and he needed the supplies."

"I doubt we'll make it."

"He's an excellent seaman. He's put us through the Cape twice in nearly as many months. This shouldn't deter us."

She dropped her gaze to stare at the water once more. In the darkness it was difficult to make out her face, even as close as they were standing.

"Why did it matter if we were going to put into port?" Stephen asked her after a moment.

"Couldn't it have been simple curiosity?"

"I doubt it was. But to satisfy any you may have had, we will be here for one more day and then we will leave. We hope to put into Gibraltar before September and from there we return to Portsmouth."

Cora shifted away from him. The bell sounded six times, clear above the distant murmur of the port.

"I don't know what to say to you but what I've already said. Persuade your captain to leave me here and you will make it home to England."

"What will happen if we take you with us?"

She shifted again, this time into the light of a nearby lantern. It outlined her form in rich gold hues, from the crown of her head to her worn boots. She could've been a piece of artwork had every pore of her not breathed life.

"Look," Called a drunk voice just returning to the ship. "There's the pirate's whore. Have you come to ply your trade to us humble sailors now?"

Someone shouted for the man's name to be taken down. Cora winced at the words.

"Please take me back to the brig," She said.

Stephen followed her back down, then lingered with her in her cell.

"We could help you if you would let us," He told her.

"I've asked for your help already. Leave me here in Georgetown. Forget me."

Stephen shook his head and was about to leave when one more question formed in his head.

"Why do you wear that bandana?"

She reached up to touch it, as if assuring herself it was still there, then smiled a sphinx's smile.

"To make you wonder."

Stephen shook his head again and bid her good night, then walked away, wondering in spite of himself.

* * *

"She's still said nothing to you. Nothing at all." 

"You shouldn't be so surprised," Stephen said, wrist deep in a sailor's stomach. "Would you say something?"

"No."

"There you have it, then. These things take time. Good God, I do believe that every seaman I've opened up has had the worst liver known to medicine."

"For Christ's sake, Stephen, do you _have_ to dissect him while I'm watching?"

"You don't _have_ to watch."

Jack Aubreygrumbled something about a lack of fresh air in the orlop and went to take the deck again. Stephen retreated into his own private world, musing on just how he would pry Cora's orders from her if she was so aware of his mission. He briefly considered getting her drunk, but dismissed it asamateurish and undignified. The only other thought that came to mind was to befriend her,and then try and play on her innate dislike of her task- whatever it was.Ashe was stitching the sailor he'dfound in an alleyway in Georgetown back up again, he decided that was thebest course open to him, even if it would take time.

Satisfied with his decision, he sat back and took notes on the dissection, unwilling to leave his private world. Then the sound of eighteen pounds of metal ripping through wood somewhere close by tore him from it.

He froze, listening to the sound of lines snapping and men screaming, and barely had enough time to shove the corpse of the unfortunate sailor onto the floor before the wounded began to stream down.

The first one was his surgeon's mate, who'd been taking the air on the deck again. The man gasped wetly, retched blood, and then lay still. He too found the floor.

"Padeen!" Stephen called. "Padeen!" No answer.

The next man under his knife was Lord Blakeney.

"No amputations, Doctor." He hissed. Thankfully, the arm wasn't broken this time. He bandaged the bleeding cut as quickly as he could.  
"Who are we fighting?" He managed to shout.

"It's the pirate again," Blakeney hissed. "The _Running_."

His thoughts flashed instantly to Cora. _She will come for me._

The most dangerous place in nature, he'd found, was between a mother and her child.

One especially wounded landsman came to him then. His arm was out of his socket and looked to be broken close to the wrist.

"I need to put this back in place."

"Don't touch me!" He shrieked.

"Someone hold him down!"

As strangely as in a dream, Cora was at his side. Stephen didn't stop to ask how she got there or how she knew just what to do, but let her stand next to him and pin the man with all her strength as he gave the arm a swift jerk. His scream carried above the bellow of the cannons.

A parade of wounded followed. Cora never faltered at his side, although she paled at the sight of some of the more ghastly wounds. She took a deep breath every time and did whatever he told her. Then, just as before, the firing ceased. There was no accompanying clash of arms this time, though. The _Surprise_'s cannon roared only once or twice more, and then they began to move faster.

Jack came down a few minutes later, as Stephen was finishing with the last of the wounded and beginning to clean up. Cora was sitting against a nearby wall, her eyes closed tight.

"She's slipped us again. She attacked us just enough to make us mad and then she fled. How much did she cost?"

"Six dead, twenty-four wounded."

Jack was about to comment when he noticed Cora rising.

"Who let you out?"

"Nobody. Some shot destroyed the door of the brig and I had to get out before more came through." She gave a brittle laugh. "It would hardly do to be killed by my own ship."

"Speaking of which, how did she know where we were? Is that why you wanted to get to port so badly? To betray us?"

"How would I have? The only person I've spoke to on this ship since I got here is Steph- the doctor. Ask him if he's betrayed you."

Jack forced all the air out through his nose.

"Your mother is a damn good sailor, I'll give you that. What I don't understand is what she's playing at."

Cora rubbed her eyes and then wrapped her arms around her waist, looking Jack dead in the eyes.

"She wants you to follow her."

"Why?"

Cora laughed again.

"God's my witness, I do not know. Not anymore."

Jack's great frame expelled a sigh, looking at the wounded men around him.

"Oh, Stephen, I'm terribly sorry, but Padeen was on deck with your mate- Mr. Adams. He was one of the first to fall when the shots came through."

Stephen took off his glasses, feeling a bolt of sorrow in his chest. A much more immediate concern reached him once the pang faded.

"It's going to be difficult to care for these men all on my own. Some of them will need operations within the next two days. Can you spare a man who isn't afraid of a little blood."

"We need all the men on deck. Our hull has been badly damaged and we need to keep up the chase." Jack went silent for a moment, lost in thought. "Miss Turner, how bad off is the brig?"

"The grating was torn off altogether, sir. It's about as secure as any other place on the ship now."

"Here is a compromise, then. Cora will stay with you in the orlop and do whatever it is that needs doing. I see she's already proven herself handy," He nodded at her bloody hands. She hid them behind her back, looking ashamed. "And then you will be able to insure that she does nothing untoward. Understood?"

"Aye, sir." Cora responded out of reflex. Stephen just nodded.

"Good. Then I take my leave."

Stephen and Cora stood in the orlop with nothing but the groans of wounded men and the creaking timbers above them to the fill the vacuum left by Jack's enormous presence. Sailors below manned the pumps to clear the hold of the water amassed there, and Cora moved to the small opening in the wall where the water sloshed through to clean the blood from her hands.

"I'm sorry," She whispered. "For the men that died here, I mean."

"It's not your fault that they died. You saved those that you could alongside myself."

She hesitated hearing this. She went to one of the wounded men nearby and gave him some water to drink.

"It doesn't make it right." She responded at last.

To this Stephen had no reply. They stood side by side, caring for the men as they could, easing some into their final resting place and fighting for the lives of others. Night deepened around them and at last the injured quieted.

They sat on the stairs,Cora drinking some grog and Stephen a bit of water. Suddenly,Cora gave a great yawn and stretched her arms above her head. At once it struck them- where would she sleep?

Stephen feared that awkwardness would stretch between them for some time yet. They sat there staring at one another, each feelings as if the other was a foreign beast, until a sailor came down with an extra hammock for Cora.

"I'll stay out here with the patients," She said, finding a place to sling it directly in front of the door to his cabin.

"Very well. Wake me if something happens. Good night."

"Good night."

Stephen retired to his tiny cabin and stripped to his breeches and shirt. He was about to slide into his hammock and write himself to sleep when he heard the soft sounds of Cora readying herself for bed. Without knowing why he did it or how to stop himself, he rose and went to the divider that sectioned off his room.

He was too late to see Cora before she slid under her blankets. Her bandana remained on, and he was left feeling somewhat sophomoric.

_She is a prisoner. And you are her warden, not a lovesick adolescent._

He dreamt of her that night. He dreamt that they stood on deck of the Surprise, simply looking at each other. There were tears on her cheeks and in her grey-blue eyes. The crew was silent behind them. He turned back to see why the ship didn't hum with life, but no one was there. He looked back to where Cora stood, but she too was gone. He heard Jack's voice calling him from a distance and walked towards it, feeling an overwhelming sense of loss without not knowing why.

* * *

A/N-- Ooh, is Stephen's dream foreshadowing? Or am I just being weird? lol. Reviews _por favor? Bitte? Please?_(thanks once more to **FuchsiaII**, who is still my only reviewer.) 


	4. A Timely Storm

A/N-- Whew, this is a long chapter! Once more, enjoy! 

Just a wee warning- I have NO knowledge of surgery (let alone the 19th century kind) and not a whole lot of knowledge in the area of anatomy, so I probably got some stuff wrong in one of the scenes of this chapter. Please don't shoot me.

* * *

Chapter Four  
A Timely Storm  
_in which there is some beating and tacking_

Stephen woke not to the sound of the captain's haunting dream call, but to the unusual sound of a woman's voice.

"Doctor, Thompson has started bleeding again."

In instants Stephen was on his feet, following Cora out into the orlop. It was easy enough to bandage him, once Cora held him down to stop his thrashing. Sleep was already a distant memory, so he set to looking at the other patients.

He felt his heart sink a bit at the sight of one of them- Figgins, a man who'd just been released from his duty at Valparaiso when he saw the _Surprise_ pull in. He had been all too eager to work his way back to England with them. He'd come to Stephen bleeding from his gut, apparently catching the wrong side of a bullet or flying wood. His tanned sailor's skin was a frightening shade of grey.

Stephen removed the bandage he put on the night before and studied the man's wound more closely. He cursed himself, realizing he hadn't seen the bits of shrapnel still in his wound the night before. Figgins had shooed him away, saying there were worse cases than his coming down.

It was clear what he needed to do, but he had no reason to cause Figgins alarm. It took only a moment for him to find Cora and then he took her aside. They stood in the entrance to his small cabin, mere inches apart. Her grey-blue eyes were hazier than normal, less determined and strong. The night hadn't been kind to her, and he tried to make up for it with the timbre of his voice.

"I'm going to need to operate on Figgins. I fear his wound is worse than I noticed and we'll need to get whatever penetrated him out."

Cora glanced over at the man in question. She attempted to smile at Stephen.

"It's just like my wound, only worse." The smile faltered. "Just like my wound."

"I never had a chance to look at your wound again. How have you been feeling?"

"Perfectly fine." Her voice faltered.

"Would you like me to look at it?" Stephen bit his tongue the moment he said the words. They'd simply slipped out. It was an embarrassing loss of control on his part; and what was he asking her in any case? She made it very clear to him when they first met that she was not a whore.

"Never mind what I've said. I didn't sleep well last night." He amended quickly.

"Yes, I could hear you. I know the sound of a restless hammock."

"You didn't sleep well either." He murmured in response.

Stephen was startled on two accounts: firstly, he himself hadn't known that he slept poorly. He had taken his usual dose of laudanum, after all. And secondly, it appeared that she was just as conscious of him as he was of her.

His mind whirled. He felt an instant longing for the narrow world of surgery.

"If we're both equal to the task I'd like to do the surgery now. I will be ready in a few minutes."

Stephen left without another word and then stood in his cabin with his eyes squeezed shut. He felt, as Jack would put it, like a terrible scrub. He shared an almost intimate moment with Cora, then turned cold without warning or explanation. It had been a long while since his humors were set so out of balance by a woman- a very long time.

Well, not so long, He reflect with a bitter twinge. The memories of days and nights with Sophie and Diana in Mapes were only worn by two years of time, really. It made him feel strangely old to think of it. Two years had taken a heavier toll on him than he had noticed.

When he returned with his apron on and his mind cleared, the table was already cleared. Cora had even poured sand on the floor, although the chances of spurting blood were low. She sat at Figgins' side, her face nearly as pale as his.

Stephen dosed him with laudanum and briefly considered dosing himself as well. The still-healing wound in his side was aching, along with older wounds that left no mark on his body.

While he waited for the medicine to plant its seeds and take hold, he set out his knives. Once five minutes had passed by his reckoning, Stephen selected his first knife and approached the wound. It was a series of holes in the man's left side, covering perhaps three inches of soft and vulnerable flesh. The skin yielded easily under his knife as he connected the holes with one cut. Figgins tensed up, but didn't cry out or struggle. Stephen saw other scars decorating his body, and it was clear that the man had been in surgery before.

"Swab."

After spreading the skin out of the way, Stephen saw the offending articles. One was a bullet, and the others were wicked splinters. He held out his hand for his forceps and removed each one slowly, setting it on the nearby tray. Cora swabbed faithfully the whole time, selecting his tools with remarkable intuition.

The last splinter was the worst. The others had gone in at a shallow angle, damaging only muscle and skin. This last one had gone straight in, and was long enough to have punctured the small intestine.

He removed the shard of wood and the outhouse smell of the intestines filled the orlop with surprising ease. Stephen remained unperturbed by it, but he could hear Cora's breath start to hitch.

"Through your mouth, Cora. It won't be so bad that way."

He sewed up the tiny cut in the leathery walls of the intestine as quick he could, then cleaned the wound and sewed him up. He congratulated Figgins on a smooth surgery and directed him to sleep off the rest of the laudanum, and then allowed a small measure of satisfaction to run through his system. Then he felt an unmistakable presence at his back.

She was standing just behind him, her eyes unusually wide. Her hands were white-knuckled where they gripped her arms.

"Will you take me on deck?"

"Right now."

"Yes. I have to go. Please."

Stephen took in her shaking hands and grey skin.

"If you're going to be sick-"

"No, I won't. I just..." She made a small sound of frustration. "I just need to see the ocean. Please, take me on deck."

What could he do but say yes?

The minute they were on deck Cora uncoiled. She went to the rail and tipped her head back and closed her eyes, and all of the tension melted out of her. Stephen waited quietly behind her. The crew was staring at them; even Jack, who was at the helm, had paused in his conversation with Bonden to look at them.

"I'm sorry for making you rush up like that, I just... I had to get out. I can't stand being caged," She smiled sheepishly. "It's a bit of a pirate thing, I'm told."

"It's quite alright. Not everyone has the constitution for surgery."

She nodded in response, and resumed her study of the sea. Stephen stood a foot or so back, to give her privacy- and also to keep himself from repeating the embarrassing episode before the surgery. His distance made it all the easier for Mr. Blakeney to approach him out of Cora's sight.

"Doctor, the captain would like to see you. He's up at the helm." He nodded in the direction of said object. "He said I'm to watch the prisoner while you're gone."

"Cora," He said. "Her name is Cora."

"Yes, sir."

Stephen crossed the deck easily, and found himself relatively alone with Jack in no time at all.

"What happened? She seemed distressed." Jack's question was in a low voice nonetheless.

"She assisted me in a surgery. I believe it unnerved her to see all the wounded men; she feels most terribly about them. She seems to think it's her fault."

Jack absorbed this, looking out over the bow. The wind was very strong that day, and several gusts nearly tore Jack's hat from his head before he resumed their conversation.

"I know I shouldn't tell you how to sail your ship, as it were, but this just might be the advantage we need. We've got her by the stern- where she's most vulnerable. If you can strike while she's still this upset, we might find out why she's here. I'm aware that I've pressed you on this matter but I hate chasing this frigate without knowing what she's up to."

"I know you're fond of your naval analogies, Jack, but you've carried this one too far. This is a human being we're talking about, not a ship. You wouldn't kick a man when he was lying in the gutter, and that same principle should apply here."

"We've been down this road before, Stephen. The safety of my ship and my men comes before all else, and if we don't find out what she's playing at she might take all of us down."

Stephen sighed and rubbed his eyes and prayed there would be no more surgeries for the day. He wanted nothing more than to lay in his cabin and let the sea rock him back to sleep.

"I will do what I can." He said at last.

Jack smiled, putting his hand on Stephen's shoulder. "You're a damn good man, Stephen. I know I don't tell you that enough."

As Stephen walked away, he felt no ill will towards Jack. It wasn't just because of his parting words; it was just the peculiar nature of their relationship. Jack had done any number of things that Stephen faulted him for and would never stop adding more to the list. But the anger he felt at them was always a fleeting thing; even when he considered Jack's broken Galapagos promise now it brought only a vague twinge of regret. It was without reason or rhyme, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Jack was his greatest friend and would remain so until his death.

Ironically, Cora had moved to the stern. She and Blakeney were talking about wind and sails, and gesturing at the canvas above them.

"Mr. Blakeney, I believe you may return to your duties." Stephen said, a little surprised the midshipman was so open with the pirate captive.

"It was a pleasure, Miss Turner." Blakeney grinned and tipped his hat, then headed off.

"I don't know why it's such a crime to be called by my first name." Cora chuckled. "You seemed to have no quarrel with it, though." She smiled and shook her head, glancing at the sky. "I was just telling Mr. Blakeney that your captain should start rethinking his sails. I think that squall I promised you in Georgetown is finally on its way."

"Cora-" Stephen began the question but forgot it in instants.

The wind had picked up again and now it tore the bandana from Cora's head at last. She snatched at it in time to catch it, but not before her glorious hair spilled out into the open. It was a thick, wavy mass with the occasional curl, a rich deep brown shot through with the occasional streak of gold. Every moment of wondering, even the vague excuses he'd come up with in his mind for why she hid herself beneath the faded blue fabric, faded suddenly from his mind in the face of reality. When her grey-blue eyes met his once more, Stephen realized for the first time that she was in fact a beautiful woman.

Cora tried to secure the bandana again, but the wind was simply too strong.

"The captain might want to start rethinking those sails about _now_."

As if in response to her low voice, the topmen ran aloft. Jack was approaching them rapidly from the other side of the ship.

"Doctor, Miss Turner, you might want to consider going below deck. We're in for a nasty storm. Nothing we can't weather, but I don't want you in harm's way. We both know the odds of you finding a way to fall overboard, Doctor."

"You could use my help, Captain." Cora called over the rising howl. Rain began to fall. "You're missing a topman. I grew up in these waters, I could help with the sails."

"I can't have the hazard of you up there, Miss Turner, it simply wouldn't be-"

"I just want to help! Give me this chance!"

Jack looked up at the sails and watched the unusually slow work. Topmen were the most skilled sailors on a ship, valued for their ability to run up the rigging to the highest sails in any weather, and they'd never quite found someone to replace Warley. The wind was picking up and a soaking rain was already pouring from the heavens. He couldn't send just anyone up there.

"Very well then. Hurry up and start by helping Mr. Andersen raise that main topgallant."

In a flash, she was gone. Just before she disappeared like lightening- or smoke and oakum as Jack would say -into the forest of ropes, Stephen saw her tighten her bandana over her drenched hair once more.

"You'd best go down to your orlop, Stephen," Jack said. "You know how many landsmen we have and I'll be damned if one or two don't manage to fall."

Stephen wondered if, for once, surgery wouldn't be the haven he was used to. As he headed down to prepare he was certain that all he'd be able to focus on was Cora's conspicuous absence.

* * *

After the main topgallant was raised, Cora and her counterpart clung to the mast and rode out the choppy surf and tearing wind. Cora found herself more calm than she had been in days. Being up there, so removed from the rest of the world, with nothing more to worry about than which sail was to be raised next, had a sort of centering effect on her. For the first time since she landed aboard the _Surprise_, she could clear her head and truly judge the situation. 

It was more precarious than ever before. Their ruse had never been so close to being discovered, and she had never been closer to disclosing it. Every time she looked into the doctor's pale eyes, she found it bubbling up inside her. She was sick of lying.

Her peaceful moment was shattered when she heard Mr. Andersen's call. His foot was tangled in some of the lines and he was rapidly slipping from the mast. Without pausing to think, Cora ran across the spar perpendicular to the mast and dropped down beside him, her legs wrapped tightly around the spar.

"Take my hand."

Andersen struggled to reach for it, but then the line snapped and he plunged towards the water.

Cora reacted before she thought. She seized the broken line and tied it around her waist, and dove after him.

She was too late to catch him while he was still in the air, but not too late to dive into the sea after him. The warm water embraced her, the line tugging at her middle, as she struggled to keep her eyes open. She finally surfaced, hearing shouted orders of 'man overboard.' She ignored them all.

"Swim to me, Mr. Andersen!" She shouted. "Over here!"

The floundering man heard her call over the others, and finally managed to find her in the water. He clung to her and nearly pulled her down with his weight. They both came up choking on seawater.

"Mr. Andersen-"

Another swell, another lung full of water. Sparks danced in her eyes.

"You have to swim back. Just hold onto my hand, I've got the rope." She gasped when they surfaced.

Andersen nodded, clutching her hand in his right one and swimming with his other. Cora kept up her grip on the line with her own right hand, pulling them closer while the waves slapped their faces, each a separate accusation.

_Do you think saving his life will make up for what you'll do? It doesn't make up for what you feel now. It isn't the doctor's life you're saving. He's the one whose eyes make you want to betray everything you've ever known- Would you rather betray him or your family?  
_  
They were finally hauled aboard the pitching deck and lay there like landed fish for a moment before they were pulled to their feet and given blankets.

"Thank you," Mr. Andersen's voice was hoarse and fervent as he continued to clasp her hand. "Thank you."

Cora nodded and smiled at him, then noticed the stares of the officers around her. They looked at her as if she were some unknown dog, and they weren't quite sure if she'd bite or not.

"Mr. Andersen, if you're recovered I suggest you return to your duties." The captain said, breaking the spell. "Miss Turner."

"I still want to be up there. This storm isn't over yet."

The captain nodded and stood out of her way. Cora spared one last glance for the assembly around her before she began to ascend the rigging once more.

_Look around you, Coraline Jacqueline Turner_, Her mind sneered. _Will you bleed for these men? Because that's what will happen if you tell them why you're here. Mummy dearest will make sure of it._

Even up at the top of their stormy world, where there should've been nothing else to occupy her mind, Cora could find no satisfactory answer.

* * *

Jack's prediction came true- Stephen saw two landsmen under his care before the storm was weathered. As the waves lulled and he ceased to fear that at any moment the ship would capsize, he wondered whether or not the captain deserved some sort of gift for his foresight. Perhaps he could let him keep that insect he'd become so fond of after the battle with the _Acheron_, the phasmid. He was always picking up its little cage when he was in Stephen's cabin, hoping it might yield another brilliant strategy. 

For now Stephen was getting ready to go to bed. He hadn't slept for an entire day, he wagered. It was difficult to judge the passage of time during a storm, but he felt that bone-deep weariness that said he'd been on his feet for far too long, unable to sleep on the storm-tossed sea. He was just heading towards his cabin when she came down the steps.

She was still completely drenched and her footsteps dragged more than usual, but her eyes were bright and alert. Stephen was arrested by their gaze.

Cora smiled at him and raised the bottle she held in her hand.

"Which it is pure rum." She said in a curious imitation of a familiar steward. "I saved one of Killick's chickens from going overboard. Care to share?"

"Only a little. I'm certain I have a pair of cups around here somewhere."

Cora shook her head, pulling out the cork in the bottle. She sat on the steps and patted the space beside her.

"Come, sit." She said, waiting for him to obey before continuing. "If there's one thing I've learned from being a pirate, it's that rum tastes better straight out of the bottle."

She tilted her head back and took a deep swig, then handed the bottle to Stephen. He hesitated for a moment, then copied her action. The rum burned all the way down, leaving a pleasing warmth in his stomach. He handed the bottle back to her and she took another swig, passing it back.

"If we keep this up, we'll be drunk." He mused. Cora laughed.

"Now don't think, Doctor Maturin, that you can get me drunk and force me to spill all my secrets. I was scarcely off my mother's breast when I was handed my first bottle of that stuff, and I hold my liquor very, very well." She snorted and took another drink, but didn't hand him the bottle this time. It remained dangling from her hand. She stared at the floor before her.

"But isn't that the whole point of becoming intoxicated?" Stephen asked. "Wild abandon?"

Cora didn't speak for a moment, then turned to look him straight in the eye. They hadn't been drinking for long, but Stephen could already feel the pleasant buzz of alcohol filling his whole being. He could smell the rum in the air, although he was hard pressed to say whether it was on his breath or hers. While she looked at him her mouth was half open, and he found himself with the insane desire to kiss her before she spoke and shattered the moment.

"I want to tell you, Stephen. Believe me, I do. But you don't know my mother. Our last name may be Turner, but her maiden name was Starre. It is the name of our... clan, if you will. And our clan has a saying: a Starre is always fixed in its course." She sighed and closed her eyes. "No matter which way I go, bloodshed will follow. It will either be on this ship or the one I was born on. You see, one of the few admirable qualities I've inherited from my mother is that resoluteness. When I choose my course, I remain on it."

"And is your course to deceive me?" His words were a whisper.

"I haven't got my course yet." She breathed back. "Believe me, you'll be the first to know when I have."

Stephen had no idea where the moment would've gone from there, but in the end it went nowhere. There was a heavy tread on the steps above them, and they froze and turned to see Mr. Mowett standing there.

"Beg pardon sir," He paused and blushed. "Ma'am. The captain would like to request the honor of your presence at his table this evening."

Cora stared at him. "Both of us?"

"That was his request."

"What time is it, in any case?" Stephen asked.

"Oh, you have at least a couple watches to go before dinner time. Enough time for some much needed sleep, I say." Stephen could've wept with joy at the words.

"Then we accept your invitation." He said instead.

Mr. Mowett touched his hat to both of them, and then left.

Cora and Stephen sat in silence on the steps for a few more moments before he spoke again.

"You know, it wouldn't do to be drunk at the captain's table." He spoke with more than a little reproach. Well nigh half of the bottle was gone.

"I told you," Cora grinned, taking another, deeper swig. "I'm very good at holding my liquor."

Stephen smiled and held his hand out for the bottle.

* * *

A/N-- Next chapter we'll see more of Jack, whom I feel I've been neglecting. Reviews keep me alive! (thanks to **FuchsiaII** once more.)

I'm particularly curious to know how everyone feels the romance is progressing... I'm trying not to make it a typical 'romantic' attraction, like a love at first sight, but something that neither of them can avoid, an insistent pull in their gut that they don't quite understand. Am I anywhere close to accomplishing that? They're kind of freaking me out right now. I can't tell if it's working. 


	5. Revelation

A/N-- There's some brief strong language in this chapter, jsyk. And I'm aware that there's a character with the name Davies in the movie- the one I introduce here is not the same man. I only picked the last name because his full name is alittle play on words. (think of POTC 2, which I'd just seen when I wrote this.) 

As I've said before, I haven't read the entire MC series yet. (I'm waiting anxiously for book 3 to arrive in the mail) The HMS _Sophie_ was Jack's first command and I don't know if it's mentioned past the first book, so I took the liberty of plugging her in here.

* * *

Chapter Five  
Revelation  
_in which two mysteries are dispelled_

Stephen awoke to his stomach's angry gurgling, and was vaguely conscious of having heard bells only a few moments before. He marveled at how his body adjusted to the naval schedule, as far as food was concerned, and wondered how it was that sailors seemed to wake up naturally with the changing of the watches and learned to dispel their tiredness with ease.

_Perhaps I shall put that to the captain's table today._

Cora was already awake when he was dressed and ready, leading him to believe his thoughts applied to pirates too. She was adjusting her bandana, and once she noticed him she smiled and rubbed her eyes.

"I damn near slept through the last dogwatch. We've got us some good rum here."

"And I'm sure we'll drink more of it than is healthy at dinner. Are you ready to go?"

"If you are."

A short walk and companionable silence later they were in the great cabin at the rear of the ship. The rest of the dinner party was already assembled and laughing. The laughter died down somewhat as Cora and Stephen entered, although Stephen was greeted warmly. Mr. Blakeney, remembering their conversation before the storm, stood and pulled out Cora's chair. She thanked him quietly and sat with her eyes cast down at the plate.

Noticing the awkwardness that now stretched the length and breadth of his table, Jack cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Gentlemen, I know you are wondering why Miss Turner is here. The truth is that she did us a good service during the storm. She saved one of our topmen and clung to the mainmast for as long as the rest of our sailors. I expect you to show her the same courtesy you would show any other guest at this table."

There were murmured assents and a few greeting nods in Cora's direction. Stephen looked at her, curious to see how she handled the scrutiny. Her face was carefully neutral, until they reached another lull.

"The truth is, gentlemen, that I won't bite you if you speak to me. And I will answer any question you ask me." She grinned and took a drink from the glass Killick poured her. "But only if you pass this around a few more times."

"We could never take advantage of you in such a state." Mr. Davies, the new sailing master they'd picked up in Valparaiso, said with a tight smile.

"Oh, don't worry about me. I split the better half of a bottle with the doctor before we came down here and you can ask him how much of myself I gave away. I merely want a little compensation for my pains."

The whole table laughed at this and agreed to pass the bottle around to her as many times as she'd like.

They talked in a desultory fashion while they waited for Killick to finish serving, mostly about the wind and current and the time they expected to make. They spoke a little of the pursuit of the _Running_- they had seen sails during the height of the storm, only a few miles distant, and then lost them -but changed their tack when they remembered who was sharing their table.

Cora was in earnest when she said she'd answer any question they asked her, but it took the men some time to gather the courage to take her up on her offer. In the end it was Blakeney who rose to the occasion.

"Miss Turner, I was wondering... that is, I thought you might know of a ship I heard of."

"What ship?"

"The _Black Pearl_. Is she real?"

Cora sat back in her chair, her grey-blue eyes knowing and a bit sad.

"She was real, until she sank in '99. I spent the better part of my childhood alongside her. Her captain was my grand-godfather, as we used to say. I assume you've heard stories about the _Pearl_?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, she wasn't a ghost ship like they used to say. We always laughed when we heard that- our bark was worse than our bite. The legend made people run up their colors more than her guns did." She smiled softly. "God, she was a beautiful ship. They say Captain Jack Sparrow sold his soul to get her. He never loved another as much as his precious _Pearl_." She lowered her eyes. "I miss him greatly. My heart stopped when I saw him fall in that last battle."

"Have you killed a man?" Mr. Davies asked suddenly. "An honest sailor?"

Cora met his eyes. For a moment she looked guilty, and then her expression hardened.

"I have."

"You know, there was a question I had intended to ask you." Stephen said just as suddenly. Every eye present at the table turned to view him with thinly veiled confusion. "I woke feeling quite hungry and I realized that my body had gotten used to eating at this time. I thought there are no more knowledgeable men than the men sitting here, so here is my question: is it the same for every sailor?"

His distraction had the desired effect. The captain's table exploded with opinions and anecdotes, each man vying to expound his to the doctor and make him believe it, from Blakeney up to the captain himself. As they broke off into their own arguments and discussions, Cora leaned over to Stephen.

"Thank you."

He raised his glass slightly in acknowledgement.

"I could hardly let you go to the lions."

She laughed quietly and leaned over to reach for the bottle. For just a moment, the length of her body from her elbow to her shoulder brushed against Stephen's. Both of them flinched back, surprised at the contact, and tried to keep from staring at each other.

"Dear doctor, I do believe you aren't even listening to our opinions," Jack smiled from the head of the table. "What _have_ you been talking about down there?"

"I was just asking the doctor what the proper protocol in the Navy for proposing a toast." Cora covered.

"I don't believe there is one."

"Well then, I win a bet. My good friend Mr. Gibbs once said that there is a protocol for everything in the Navy." She smiled back, raising her glass. "To you, Captain Aubrey, for weathering that storm. I have scarcely seen better navigation in all my years. You know your vessel and your men well, and for that I applaud you."

"Here, here."

"To you, Captain."

Jack's normally ruddy face was suffused with even more color at this and he accepted the toast with downcast eyes and a smile.

"Gentlemen, pass the bottle to Miss Turner. I have a question to ask." He said when the toast was done and her cup was empty. "It's a question I've asked before, but I failed to ply her with wine beforehand, and I must assume that this is why she failed to answer."

Chuckles at this, and the bottle was passed. Cora looked a little wary- was Jack about to do what they both feared? Stephen could see her hand tensing on the arm of her chair. Without thinking, he touched the back of it. She wrapped her fingers around his, bringing their hands palm to palm out of sight of the others and holding his tight.

Cora held her glass while it was filled and then looked to Jack.

"And your question, Captain?"

Jack paused, leaning across the table.

"How old are you?"

Cora's hand relaxed instantly in Stephen's, but she didn't move to take it away. Instead she raised the glass to her lips and drained it all in one gulp.

"If you gentlemen simply must know, I am twenty-five years old." She laughed. "Are you satisfied, Captain?"

"We never would've guessed!"

"It's so hard to tell!"

"The sea must keep you young!"

"You are too kind, gentlemen," She laughed. "And the same must apply to you, if you will say it of me."

The table dissolved once more into aimless chatter, and as Cora was caught in the current she let go of Stephen's hand to articulate some sort of nautical process better. He sat back, knowing he couldn't join in, and observed the company as he was wont to do when the conversation went over his head. Every man present paid Cora the respect she was due, even daring in a few flirtatious remarks. Every man but Mr. Davies. The moment Cora entered in the conversation, he went silent and sat back like Stephen, and didn't rejoin it until her voice faded away again.

The night wore on and soon voices could be heard drifting down from the deck. Everyone stilled to pick up the strains of the song, and everyone chuckled when they heard the words.

_Oh, what do ye do with a drunken sailor?  
What do ye do with a drunken sailor?  
What do ye do with a drunken sailor earl-eye in the mornin'?_

_Scrape 'is belly with a rusty razor  
Scrape 'is belly with a rusty razor..._

"I love this song." Cora grinned.

"Did you sing it on your ship?" Mr. Mowett asked.

"All the time."

The sailors were on the fifth refrain when the party finally broke up. As Stephen and Cora walked together towards the orlop, Cora couldn't resist joining in on a few of the raunchier phrases. Her particular favorite was the one about putting him in a room with the captain's daughter.

"Do you know, we could change it to fit us?" She said when they were down in the orlop. It was beginning to clear out now, and they were all but alone.

"Us?" Stephen asked. The memory of her hand in his was still vivid, as if he could still the pulse of her fingertips.

"Yes. It still fits the rhythm if you sing it as 'put her in the brig with the captain's doctor,'" She shook her head, still smiling. Her cheeks were flushed- he could see it even in the low light of the ship's belly.

"My darling Miss Turner, I do believe you're drunk." He sighed, shaking his head. "There's a bucket over there if you decide to vomit in the morning."

"I am most certainly not drunk," She swaggered over to stand close to Stephen, her voice turning to a whisper. Her hand fiddled with the cloth at his neck. "And my name is Cora."

Following a whim, Stephen reached behind her and tugged her bandana off so that her hair fell wild and untamed around her face. The action brought her body flush against his, and this time there was a spark of heat, followed by a steady desire not to move her from where she currently was.

"You should leave it like this." He murmured. His fingers ached to touch it, to touch her, but they wouldn't move from his sides.

Then they both heard footsteps on the nearby stairs and Cora stood back. She took the bandana from him and put it back on in a movement so fast it was difficult to see. Moments later Mr. Davies stood in the orlop. He was a tall, thin sailor, with deep lines carved into his face by years of wind and sea and squinted eyes that made him look perpetually angry. Which he was, in any case, having the misfortune to be a sailor with the first name Jonah.

"Miss Turner, the captain wants you for this watch."

The change in Cora was instantaneous. Gone was the slightly-drunk woman who'd smiled at Stephen with eyes full of light and returned was the mostly-sober sailor with eyes full of secrets. The pirate.

"Very well. I'll accompany you topside."

She didn't look back or say goodnight.

* * *

The next day, three bells into the afternoon watch, Jack Aubrey sat alone in the great cabin with his quill scratching at the pages of his logbook. 

_Opened beef cask No. 134. Bent new topgallants. Trained gun crew. Still in pursuit of pirate frigate._

His daily entries were cleansing for him, although he'd started this one early. He touched wood that it wouldn't be a full day; he'd already called for the crew to weigh anchor and raise canvas to commence repairs after the damages of the storm. She'd been a violent blow, and while they'd lost no lives and suffered no crippling damage, the rigging was still a trifle confused.

He was about to list the other repairs the Surprise was enduring when he heard Killick's grumbling and his shuffling step getting closer.

"Which it is Mr. Davies, sir."

The officer made his obedience and then approached Jack at his table.

"Sir, I came to discuss last night."

"What about last night? I know you didn't want to bend the new topgallants, but the old ones simply wouldn't do after that storm, not in my book." He took a deep breath and glowered at the sailing master. "Heaven help you, Mr. Davies, if this is about Miss Turner."

"Sir, it is." He responded stiffly.

Ever since they took Coraline Turner prisoner Davies had made no secret of his thoughts: hanging was almost too good. He'd heard whispers that Davies' brother or someone else he knew was killed by pirates in these very waters only a year or so ago. The rumor was that the murderers might even be the same pirates they were chasing now.

"I've made my feelings on the matter as clear as you've made yours. If she can be brought to cooperate with us, God willing, I will grant her a pardon and set her free."

"With respect, sir, do you think your reasons will stand up before the Admiralty?"

A defined chill settled over the room at those words. Jack's merry blue eyes hardened perceptibly.

"Even if they do not stand up before the Admiralty, they stand up before my conscience. That is justification enough for me. If you have nothing else to say, I strongly suggest you return to your duties."

"I have one more message, sir. We just saw sails on the horizon."

They cleared the deck for action, but in the end it was the table that needed clearing. The captain of the sloop was an old friend of Jack's, a man by the name of Michael McCormack; they'd been midshipmen together, but when he consistently failed to pass for captain in later years he accepted a life as a merchantman instead. He worked for the East India Trading Company.

They shared a private dinner that night, chewing over old acquaintances as Jack caught McCormack up on his naval news. Some had died, some had been promoted, some had been passed- the usual. He went into a long account of his fight with the _Acheron_, still fresh and glorious in his mind, but said nothing of the current affair he was in. That was why the last turn of their conversation, when it was getting late and the wine was running out, came as a surprise.

"Tell me, Jack," Michael asked. "Do you intend to stay long in the Caribbean?"

"We have some business to wrap up here and then we're homeward bound. I intend to make Gibraltar no later than November."

"Good, good. I wouldn't want to stay here long if I were still part of the Navy. The tables have been turned!"

"What do you mean?" Jack felt a curious calm stealing over him- the calm before the storm.

"Well, you know how these waters used to be suicide for merchantmen, what with the pirates and all. As I've heard tell, most of the good pirates are gone now, and the last terror of this sea has set her sights on Navy ships now."

"Navy ships?"

"Yes! Let's see, there was the _King Charles_, a lively frigate, that was sunk not a month ago. And before that an older sloop called the _Sophie_, and some others farther back that I don't recall. All by the same ship."

"Surely not my _Sophie_!" Jack cried.

"The same, I believe, and a few others. She's a nasty little bitch of a frigate, they say, quite large for a pirate vessel. I haven't seen her meself, but I heard tell of her last time I made port. They say she has a blood feud with the Navy and she'll sink anything that crosses her path bearing the Union Jack, and takes no prisoners. Burn it to the waterline with the crew still aboard, and the captain's head taken with his own sword."

A deep chill set itself in Jack's bones, despite the alcohol and the close heat of the room.

"Did you happen to hear the frigate's name?"

* * *

Stephen lay awake reading that night, unable to find sleep. Cora had long since returned from her watch and gone to bed, and every so often he'd glance outside to see if she remained. They hadn't spoken since the night previous. Part of him ached to step outside and wake her, but he had no idea what he'd say or do. 

He ceased reading when he heard the heavy tread of several men coming down to the orlop and lay still, wondering what purpose they could have down here. He was certain they were walking in time with each other, which could mean only one thing- the marines.

Foreboding gripped him. He set aside his book and climbed out of his hammock in time to see Cora rise from hers and face Mr. Howard and four of his men.

"I'm to take you to the captain's cabin, Miss Turner." A pair of manacles dangled from his hands.

"Those won't be necessary." Her voice was tight with fear.

"Captain's orders."

"Please, I've done nothing-"

"Captain's orders."

Two of the marines held her arms while the third fastened the manacles. They assumed positions around her and prepared to lead her away.

Stephen followed without being asked. The foreboding feeling that had prompted him to leave the warm safety of his hammock compelled him to follow their small detachment through the ship, past the angry stares of the sailors, towards the great cabin. Before they could reach it, Mr. Andersen, the sailor whose life Cora saved, stepped in front of them and spat in her path.

"Fucking pirate!"

Mr. Hollar called for the man's name to be taken down, then led them down into the cabin.

Jack was waiting there, standing at stiff attention. Killick was in the background, clearing off the remains of dinner. Stephen had noted on their way over that the ship visiting them, the Beacon, was departing.

"Mr. Howard, stand your men down and retire. Stephen, I recommend that you return to your quarters."

Mr. Howard gave a dutiful 'aye sir' and then addressed his men, but Stephen squared his shoulders.

"I intend to find out what this show of force was for."

Jack cast Stephen a withering stare.

"That 'show of force' was for Miss Turner's benefit. I want her to realize that she remains a prisoner on board this ship."

"She's standing right here."

"Sir, why did you bring me here?" Cora asked quietly. She stood in the middle of the cabin with her shackled hands lax before her. She didn't look afraid- only very, very tired.

"I shared dinner with an old friend of mine tonight. He told me a very interesting story about a pirate frigate that had been patrolling these waters for ships of the fleet these past two years. He said that her favorite tactic is to attack a ship once, pretend to board, and then flee, only to attack the same ship later. On the second attack, she has always contrived some sort of method to get in boarding close to the enemy ship without being fired on, and then when she opens fire every man on board is massacred and the ship sunk. He told me the ship's name was the _Lone Star Running_."

Cora was shaking. Jack took a step closer to her, his massive height making her seem small and helpless.

"Miss Turner, you will tell me why you are on this ship. If you will not, then it will be the cat for you tomorrow, so help me God."

Cora took a deep breath and closed her eyes; Stephen knew she was trying not to cry.

"We've been sinking all those ships because my mother would send me over in our first attack and leave me. Then later she'd come back to ransom me. Just as she and the captain reached an accord our ship would open fire and we'd flood their decks and kill them.

"I've never wanted this. I've never hated it more than now. When I got on this ship I saw it as a means to escape. That's why I kept asking you to leave me at the next port. I don't want this life. Not anymore. Not with my mother as captain of that ship."

Jack took a step back from Cora, who bowed her head to hide the tears burning in her eyes. Then he went to the door of his cabin and called up:

"Pass the world for Mr. Howard, and tell him to bring the key to the irons with him." He turned back to Cora. "Is there anything that can be done?"

"The next time you see the Running, attack her. Even if she's flying a flag of truce. Especially if she's flying a flag of truce."

"If it comes to battle, can I guarantee your allegiance to our cause?"

"I've already told you, Captain. I want no part of this. If it comes to battle, I only want to remain in the hold and pretend I don't hear the screams."

Jack took this in and nodded.

"As soon as Mr. Howard arrives and unlocks those irons, the doctor can take you back to the orlop. I'll send for you in the morning and I expect you to be ready to tell me everything you know about that ship- her weaknesses, her strengths, the way she fights, everything. I will take her a prize or sink her, and then you will be free. We will secure you a full pardon."

Cora nodded and then stood mute until Mr. Howard arrived, at which point she went over to him and held out her hands. Then Stephen approached Jack, close enough to whisper.

"You just made her sell her soul, Jack."

"She said she wanted freedom. I've given it to her."

Stephen sighed, seeing the deadness in her eyes when she turned back to them.

"I don't think she knew the cost."

Jack gave Stephen a queer look.

"Until the _Running_ has struck her colors Miss Turner is still a prisoner. Remember that, Stephen."

Cora remained silent all the way back to the orlop. When they got there, she simply stood staring at her hammock. Stephen stared at her back, as unable as before to contemplate sleep.

"I betrayed them. Everyone." She whispered.

Stephen went to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Sensing the pressure, she turned to face him. Without speaking, following only instinct, they wrapped their arms around each other in a slow embrace. She smelled of saltwater- but for a reason he couldn't define, the scent reminded him more of tears than of the sea.

"I promise you it was for the best." He whispered.

She nodded, and after another moment Stephen let her go. She put one hand on his chest; after a moment, it strayed up so that her fingertips brushed his cheek.

"I told you when I chose my course you'd be the first to know." Her eyes seemed to be searching for something in his. She dropped her hand and took a step back; now her eyes said that she'd seen something in his that frightened her.

The same vertigo swirled over the doctor. He turned on his heel and went back into his cabin and reached for the bottle of laudanum. As he was counting each merciful drop, he couldn't escape the fact running endlessly through his head: Jack's warning was one he could not heed.

* * *

Kevin Andersen's feet hit the deck with a resounding echo as he leapt out of the rigging. The blessed sound of the bells had reached their ears and the watch was changing. Time for someone else to take care of the sails- he was away to his hammock. 

"Did you hear the captain's decision on her? The pirate?" His friend Alexander Toner asked as they waited for the watch to finish changing. "She cries her sad story about hating her life, and he says she'll get a pardon if she just tells him how to sink her own ship. Complete bollocks, I say."

"It should be the noose for her and nothing else." Kevin agreed vehemently. "The way she's been betraying Navy ships all this time- and she didn't come clean about it right away either. How do we know she really wants to become a good citizen after all?"

"Leave it lie," Their third companion, Billy Robinson, said. "It's not for us to decide. And she did save your life, Kevin."

Kevin sneered and spat over the rail. "One good deed. I'm nothing compared to the dozens I'll bet she's killed. Your own father's ships were sunk by pirates out here, Bill, don't you remember? His whole fortune was in those ships. If it weren't for those pirates you could've had an officer's commission, instead of scraping by as a topman."

Billy grit his teeth and spat over the rail too.

"I still say we leave it lie. There's nothing we can do."

"Aye. That's the truth of it."

As one the three of them turned and prepared to head below to their berth. Their sojourn was halted by a fist in Kevin's stomach.

"What's this about?" Alex hissed as his friend doubled over. They froze when the sailing master stepped out from the shadows and withdrew his fist.

"I wouldn't leave it lie, if I were you."

Billy and Alex glanced at each other.

"Yea, and what would you do? Sir?"

"It's not what I'll do, gentlemen," Jonah Davies said. "It's what _we'll_ do."

* * *

A/N-- And now the tables have turned... will Jack be successful against the _Running_? Will Cora change her mind? And what is Mr. Davies up to? The next chapter is where it starts to get good... Please review! (thanks to **Rachel. S** and **FuchsiaII** for doing just that!) 


	6. In Dreams

A/N-- Wow, we're halfway through this fic already. I'd better hurry up and finish the end! Enjoy this next chapter!

* * *

Chapter Six  
In Dreams  
_in which the tide shifts_

Stephen indulged in one thing to excess, and that was his laudanum. He realized that it was an addiction, an unhealthy one, and that it had side-effects on his health- such as a diminishment of his sexual appetites -but none of this bothered him. Sleep was a much more necessary commodity for him than that connection with another human being- and God knew that Jack had appetites enough to make up for his friend's lack. The captain had remarked on it before. Most recently when Stephen repulsed his inquiries, Jack had pursed his lips and said:

"The simple truth of it is that Diana doesn't want you, Stephen. You have to let her go before she tears you apart."

"She takes particular joy in tearing me apart, and if that is the only joy I can offer her she is welcome to take it."

He'd increased his laudanum that night.

He hadn't decreased it since, and that was why he felt muddled when he woke the next morning to the sound of the watch changing with sweat on his skin and a lingering hardness in his groin. He didn't remember the last time he'd felt truly aroused. He knew instantly who he'd dreamt about.

He sank back into a restless stupor, feeling like a ship whose moorings were cut loose in the night and was left to drift at sea. He wanted her, but he was hard-pressed to say when the wanting started. It wasn't like the first moment he met Diana- his heart hadn't sped up when she touched him as it did when Diana first kissed him at the ball. But he found himself wanting Cora with the same throbbing ache he still felt when Diana's face came to mind.

He waited for the sleepy arousal to fade before he stirred, and splashed water over himself for good measure.

_Wake up, Maturin. She probably doesn't want you either._

He sat at his desk and tried to write, seeking to capture the elusive feelings he'd woken up with or even to remember the dream that had prompted them. He couldn't. The same instinct that had propelled him to fling himself at Diana, to challenge Jack to a duel for her, to follow her to India, propelled him to stand up from his desk and go out into the orlop to see her.

It hit him like a twelve-pound shot when he saw she wasn't there. For one irrational spasm of a moment he thought she left because he was right, and she didn't want him at all, but then he regained control of his mind. She had no way of knowing what he felt. He himself barely grasped it.

He had no patients at the moment and so he went topside to take in the air and walk the deck, searching for his lost peace of mind- which happened to take the form of a pirate with grey-blue eyes and dark hair she kept hidden from the world.

The deck was currently alive with sailors as they finished their repairs. He lingered amidships and observed the sails, wondering if he would dare to climb the rigging once more and take in the sight of the restless azure sea. His roving eye reached the helm at last and another piece of twelve-pound shot hit him. She was at the helm with Jack and Bonden. He remembered Jack's orders for her to give up her ship's every secret. It was no surprise that she was gone when he woke.

Jack seemed to have all he wanted of Cora, because when they finished talking she walked aft. At first her eyes were on the deck, but then she looked up and caught Stephen's gaze. She started to angle her path towards him but got only a couple feet when three sailors ran into her.

"Excuse me, Miss Turner!"

"Pardon us, Miss Turner!" They touched their knuckles to their foreheads. She tried to disentangle herself from them but the first one who had spoken caught her around the waist.

"Don't walk away from us! Don't you have anything to say?"

Stephen stood and took a step forward.

Cora tried to break free once more but the man drew her close against him, and then threw her against the mast. He was making as though to kiss her when he gave a strangled cry. He jerked away from her, revealing Cora's knee where it had driven up in search of a vulnerable spot.

One of his friends swung at Cora's head, but she ducked and his hand hit the solid oak. The third sailor tackled her to the deck. She drew her head back and slammed her forehead into his nose without hesitation.

The whole ship was in an uproar over what amounted to a few seconds of frenzied fighting. Stephen was shoving the sailor away; his nose bled profusely and the other man looked to have broken his hand, but the surgeon in him couldn't be brought to care. He was too occupied with pulling Cora to her feet. She pulled away from him, and before he could feel hurt he saw the reason; Jack was approaching from the helm like an angry storm cloud.

"What's all this?"

"She attacked us!" The sailor who'd hit the mast called instantly.

"You lying bastard!" Cora shouted back. Stephen tried to still her but couldn't. "If this were my ship your balls would be rolling across the deck right now!"

"Cora!"

"Who saw this happen?" The captain asked, his voice trembling with fury.

Stephen said that he had and saw Mr. Davies nod. In all the commotion, he hadn't noticed that the sailing master was nearby.

Jack nodded to Stephen first.

"They attacked Miss Turner first. She tried to walk away when this man here-" He saw with disgust that it was Andersen again. The man had a funny sense of gratitude. "Shoved her up against the mast as if he was going to take advantage of her. It was only then that she fought back."

"Mr. Davies?"

The sailing master turned one of his squinting eyes on Cora, and then on the bleeding sailors.

"I saw nothing."

As Jack stood there, Stephen could see his mind grappling with the situation. The crew was hanging on his every word; he couldn't afford to delay.

"Master at arms, take these three men below deck and clap them in irons. Doctor Maturin, take Miss Turner to the orlop and see to it she stays there. Mr. Mowett, it's your watch. See to it we stay on our course for Isla Cruces and pass the word for me if there's even a hint of sail. Mr. Davies, to my cabin." With that, the captain left, the sailing master in his wake.

While the master at arms was retrieving the irons, Stephen approached Cora. The larger part of the crew was still staring at her- some as if she might attack them next, others as if she didn't get everything she deserved.

"Come with me." Stephen said, touching her elbow.

"Don't touch me."

She jerked away from his touch and stormed below deck on her own. He followed and found her lying on her hammock, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. He pretended not to notice the fact that her scuffle on the deck had loosened the ties on her blouse and that it was close to falling off of one of her shoulders.

"Are you injured?"

"I'm fine. Leave me." If her voice had taken physical form it would've been ice.

"Very well." Stephen whispered, disappearing into his own cabin, where he decided that his earlier fears weren't unfounded at all.

* * *

Later that day, Jack sent for Stephen. Everyone around the great cabin was treading softly, and that led to a rise in Stephen's own anxiety. He hoped he wasn't going to be interrogated. 

Jack didn't appear in a yelling mood, though. He sat by the enormous windows at the rear of the surprise, his violin cradled at his side. Stephen's 'cello was set out nearby. The doctor came forward and sat at his side, resting his 'cello idly between his legs, and had a chance to start tuning before Jack even turned to him.

"It's a damned unfortunate business, Stephen. I have to flog all three of those men, and my conscience tells me that Miss Turner should escape their fate. But the men will never accept her if I do that. We'll have to keep her below deck for the rest of this damned chase." Jack sighed and set his violin down. "I called you here to play and now I can't even find the heart in me to do it."

Stephen set aside his 'cello and drew his chair closer to Jack's.

"The only reason this happened is because I wasn't with her, as I was supposed to be. Don't sentence her to the hold- let me look after her as I have been."

"I don't know if even your presence would be enough to stop another incident, but she did seem to come off rather well in the fight on her own. Have you tended to the sailors?"

"It's nothing that they won't live through. Robinson's nose might be a little crooked, it was hard to set it to my satisfaction."

Jack shook his head and ran his hands over his face, and then through his golden hair.

"Miss Turner told me where she thinks we should go- she says there's a deserted island called Isla Cruces that she's used as a base in times past when they've been on the hunt. She thinks if we hide there for a few days the Running will come by to take on water before setting off to find us, never knowing we're there. She's a little lighter than us as far as guns go, but Miss Turner says she has the advantage in the length of her cannon and maneuverability- said she can turn on the head of a pin easy as kiss my hand. But if we have the element of surprise once more we can take her." His smile was weak. "I'll be happy when we're rid of her."

"The ship or Cora?"

"Both." He sighed when he saw Stephen's look of displeasure. "I know I'm being the most wretched creature. Disciplining the men always puts me in such a foul mood, and I don't like the mood of the Surprises right now either. Did you hear about the fight in the galley?"

"I tended to some of the men and heard it from every angle. Even Mr. Blakeney was involved, correct?"

"Yes, and I've had to reprimand him too. Some of the men still stand on Miss Turner's side. They feel she's a good person. But the others still want to see her hanged, and it's tearing us apart."

"The officers who dined with her- do they still hold her in favor?"

"Of course. I believe poor Mr. Mowett is quite enamored of her. But not everyone has had the opportunity to speak with her in such a small setting."

"Perhaps we should give them such an opportunity."

"What do you intend to do, Stephen? Parade every member of the crew by her as if she were some kind of visiting dignitary?" Jack barked out a laugh. "It's too late now. Far too late."

Stephen couldn't help but see the truth in his words.

* * *

The next day they all stood in the sweltering sunshine as the three men- Andersen, Robinson and Toner -were led one at a time to the grating and given their lashes for violence and disorderly conduct. Andersen went last, and after he was taken down from the grating he whirled to face the nearby opening that led into the bowels of the ship. 

"We bleed for you!" He shouted.

Everyone turned and saw Cora standing, half above deck and half below, watching with horror in her eyes. The moment she knew she'd been spotted, she disappeared below deck once more.

"That's enough, Mr. Andersen, unless you want another lashing!" The captain barked. "Everyone else, as you were. Drop canvas and prepare to make way."

Stephen went down to the orlop, anticipating the arrival of the disciplined sailors, and found Cora already there. She sat in the shadowy corners of the small room, her knees drawn to her chest. They hadn't spoken since he escorted her below deck the day before, although she'd been in much the same place the whole time. He didn't venture to speak to her now, recognizing from the intensity of her eyes and her strained shoulders that her mood hadn't improved. She sat like so much coiled violence.

Toner and Robinson were down first and Stephen tended to their wounds with minimal trouble, sending them on their way. Andersen came down much later, skulking as if he'd been forced to come.

"Take off your shirt and lie on the table, if you please." Stephen said, reaching for the linen bandages he'd prepared for them.

Andersen did as he was told, but sat up on the table rather than lying.

"I suggest you lie on your front."

The man showed him a half-snarl and then gave in. Stephen realized as he surveyed the broad expanse of back and the numerous cuts that scored it that the salve he had on hand wasn't enough.

"Miss Turner," He called. "Please fetch some of my extra ointment. I believe there's another jar in my cabin, sitting on my desk."

Cora disappeared and reappeared with the jar he'd asked for. She was about to hand it to Stephen, then drew her hand back upon seeing the lashes.

"I've been under the cat before," She whispered. "Let me help with the wounds."

"Don't even think of touching me." Andersen spat.

Cora put the jar down on the table with an angry clack and walked away.

Stephen finished with Andersen in silence. As the sailor was putting his shirt back on he spoke again.

"For all your disgust you seemed willing enough to try and rape her."

"I was never going to hurt her. She overreacted is what happened."

"That's not what I saw."

Andersen smiled a Mona Lisa smile and left the orlop, leaving Stephen to wonder what he hadn't seen.

* * *

That night he dreamt of her again. But it wasn't the kind of dream that woke him aching for release. It was the kind that woke him and left him feeling as though he'd been screaming or crying for hours. His head ached. 

He heard movement outside his door and went outside in time to hear footsteps retreating above him. He looked to the hammock strung near him and saw that it was empty and swinging.

He took the stairs two at a time and caught her just as she was about to go topside. He seized her wrist and pulled her back down a few steps, just enough so that no one on deck would see them.

"What are you doing? You know the captain has confined you to the orlop." He hissed.

She said nothing, her eyes full of sullen anger. Stephen sighed and led her the rest of the way back down.

"I hate this." She said in a low furious voice when they got there. "I can't stand it. I betrayed my family for these men and this is how they repaid me. But even when I saw them getting lashed I still felt as if it was all my fault. I can't stand lying and trying to stay calm when I want to scream and I can't stand hiding myself- you haven't even met me, Stephen! I can't be myself here!"

The look in her eyes changed slowly from rage to soft amazement. Once more, Stephen reached up and tugged the bandana off of her hair. It fell to the ground, unnoticed.

"I can't stand this." She whispered as her hair fell all over her shoulders.

"Neither can I." He whispered back.

It was like inertia or some other force beyond mortal control pushed them together. Her lips found his like it was accident and then clung like he was air. His hands went trembling into her hair and held her. She pulled back for only a second, and then found him again. Her arms held him beneath his coat, and it was strangely the most erotic thing she'd done, both in his dreams and out of them.

The moment of tension held until they felt surely they would shatter, and then it was over. They let out shuddering breaths at once, and when their lips met again it was softly. Instead of feeling their teeth and skulls straining through their flesh to press together, Stephen was aware of her breasts against his chest and her legs shifting against his. He cupped the base of her head with his hand and kissed her until he was dizzy.

This time when they pulled back so their eyes could meet. Their gazes held, as intimate as the remembered contact of their lips. Cora's were still shaking, her grey-blue eyes filled with something that might have been fear. Fear at what they had done, fear at what it meant. Stephen searched fruitlessly for something to say but words failed.

All he could do was draw her close so that she could rest her head on his chest and he could rest his head on hers. One of his arms slipped around her waist and the other hand remained tangled in her thick hair. As he held her, he felt absurdly like crying. But then she gave a small sigh and relaxed into him and turned her head so that he felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his neck, and he felt nothing but a great peace.

They stood there together, a silent acknowledgement of what words couldn't say: that they could stand like this forever, and there would never be enough moments in the whole world for them as a pair.

After a long time they could no longer stand entwined as they were. She caught his hand when he broke away and began to draw circles on it with her fingertip, like a soothsayer searching for some kind of sign; Stephen was faced once more with the ineffectuality of words as he struggled for a way to part from her.

"We should go to bed. I hear we'll make Isla Cruces tomorrow."

"Not until late, I should think. I wish there were enough room." She added suddenly, without looking up.

"Enough room where?"

"In the hammocks. For both of us."

Stephen felt that telltale jump in his heart. Her finger stopped moving on his hand and she met his eyes at last.

"I don't know when it started- but when I'm with you-" She made a frustrated noise. "You're the reason I wanted to tell, Stephen. My secret was never this hard to keep. Every time I looked at you-"

She banished her confusion by kissing him once more, just a brief press of lips that barely gave them time to close their eyes.

"My God, I thought you'd never get around to that." She murmured.

Stephen held her against him for just another moment, then eased her away.

"Good night." He whispered, then turned and went into his cabin before she could respond. He lay in his hammock with his heart pounding, trying to reconcile his fear at what had happened with the need to kiss her again.

Stephen took no laudanum that night.

* * *

A/N-- I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter- I'm having fun actually writing the romance now. Did anyone catch my POTC 2 reference? Kudos if you did. Reviews (like **FuchsiaII**'s) would make me happy! 


	7. A Pirate By Any Other Name

A/N-- I have one minor announcement: I've finished this story at last, and our updates will occur regularly every other day from now until the end of the story (which is about six chapters away). Just thought I'd let you know.

* * *

Chapter Seven  
A Pirate By Any Other Name  
_in which a crime is committed_

Cora woke over and over again during the night, every time with her lips still tingling, as if Stephen had come to her to kiss her again. The last time she woke she sat straight up, her hand extended, expecting to really find him there. She unearthed the bottle of rum they'd shared and drank as much as she could stand before she curled her body around it and tried to sleep once more. It occurred to her without warning that the last time she'd been kissed was six years before.

_You took lashes for that kiss too_. The niggling voice that had spoken to her during the storm warned. _Are you prepared to do it again?_

_Yes._ The answer came as suddenly as her memory and hit her with as much force. She wasn't prepared for it the first time, although she knew Finn far longer than she had Stephen.

She raised the bottle again only to find that the bottom staring down at her.

"Have you found happiness yet?"

He was standing nearby, shirt still creased with sleep, no shoes on his feet, his short hair more messy than before, if possible.

"Not quite." She remembered to answer, setting the bottle down on the hammock and sitting up. She'd forgotten to put her bandana back on and her hair was riled with sleep, poking out at a dozen different angles. They both realized it at once and began to laugh as Cora made a vain attempt to settle it by running her fingers through the wild strands again and again.

Stephen watched her and then stepped forward, replacing her hand with his. She winced at the knots and he made murmured apologies she didn't really hear. Her hands found a new home on his arms and she tugged on them until he bent low enough for her to kiss him.  
He reacted by tightening his grip on her neck, crushing her to him. The hammock swayed dangerously when he tried to deepen the kiss and she pulled back, afraid of falling. It would hurt to come down off the high.

The look in his pale eyes changed, and the consuming hunger she'd glimpsed was gone. Instead there was one of something close to tenderness- maybe even sadness.

Then the dreaded footsteps on the staircase sounded again, and they barely had time to find a sort of propriety before Mr. Blakeney dropped into their midst, not even waiting to catch his balance before he blurted his message.

"Sir, sir, there's dolphins! Riding in the wake of the ship! Come quickly before they leave!" With that he darted back up the staircase towards the happy calls of the other sailors.

"Dolphins," Stephen breathed. "I've been expecting them ever since we've reached the Caribbean, but we've had the most uncommon bad luck. Only sharks. I'm with child to see dolphins..."

Cora smiled to herself, remembering a time when she too saw dolphins as a sign of good fortune, a smile from the gods of the sea. He stood in his own world now, one she couldn't keep him from if she tried.

"By all means, go and see your dolphins." She leaned back in her hammock. "I'm in no hurry to leave."

He glanced to her and she saw the debate form in his mind before he dashed back into his cabin and returned with his sketchbook. She was just composing herself for sleep again, not expecting to see him until the dolphins were long gone, when to her surprise he bent at her side and pressed a lingering kiss onto her lips. She didn't even have time to catch her breath before he was running up the stairs. She felt no sense of loss as he left- only expectation for his return.

* * *

The trip from his orlop to the deck had never seemed shorter to Stephen. He hadn't even breathed since he'd kissed Cora good-bye- he could still feel the moisture of her lips on his and felt like a thief whose treasure was safely hidden. He only thought to breathe again when he stood at the bow beside Jack and saw the graceful grey bodies inches away. 

"There you are, Stephen. You look uncommon flushed- surely they aren't that exciting!" Jack smiled.

"Only to you, and you have no appreciation for nature." He quipped, already bracing his book against the rise and fall of the sea. The Surprise was making a good clip, creating waves along the bow that the dolphins were leaping off of. Perhaps they hadn't been going fast enough before to attract them- this he jotted down quickly.

"We could find out how many knots we're making." Jack supplied, looking over Stephen's shoulder. He pulled his book closer to himself in response and gave the captain a withering stare.

"That wouldn't help, since you know full well I can't remember what a knot is besides a complication in a piece of string."

"Don't glare at me so, dear, it was only a suggestion. I wasn't trying to make you look the fool."

Killick was hovering nearby them, attempting to give Stephen a cup of coffee that he waved off. He soon turned to Jack again with a full plate.

"Which it is your breakfast that you left in the cabin."

"Thankee, Killick, but I'm not hungry." He picked up a slice of ham. "Perhaps the dolphins would enjoy some."

"Do not molest these creatures, Jack Aubrey. You'll scare them off, and I've been waiting for months aboard this blasted boat to see them."

"Ship, Stephen, ship. You're in a rare mood this morning! I'll leave you to your dolphins, seeing as how they're better company than I am."

With the captain's departure, most of the officers followed him. Stephen just caught Mowett's parting words on the breeze:

"There's a sign of good luck if ever I saw one. We'll catch those pirates for sure."

Blakeney remained with him, having fetched his own book from the mid's berth. The dolphins leapt alongside the ship and further out in the water made fantastic shapes in the air. Time slipped by- Stephen had his eye on a particular pair, a mother and child, the mother with long teeth marks down her flank. He was just sketching her side when all at once the dolphins dropped away, sinking like grey shadows into the deep without a backward glance for the sunny reaches above them.

"I wonder what frightened them." Stephen said with a frown, standing and leaning over the rail for further sight of them. "Perhaps they shall come back." Blakeney said nothing. His young face was screwed up with worry- for if the presence of dolphins was the best kind of luck out at sea, what did their sudden absence mean?

Then the shout came.

"She's murdered him! She's murdered him!"

Everyone turned to see Jonah Davies bursting from below deck, his chest heaving and his squinted eyes livid.

"Mr. Andersen has been murdered!"

Stephen pressed his sketchbook into Blakeney's hands and followed the sailing master below deck, his mind already racing. Who would've stabbed Andersen? Unless...

But he refused to follow that thought to its conclusion.

He doubled his pace, conscious of the other officers behind him, and found Davies crouched beside a pale form on the landing before the orlop. The wound was a stab in the solar plexus- he was already dead.

"Call the men to order. I want an account of every man's whereabouts for the last half hour." Jack instructed Mr. Mowett, then knelt at Stephen's side.

"Poor soul."

"There will be no need to call the men to order, sir." Davies said. "I know who did this."

The two friends froze.

"Do you have proof, sir?"

"I found this in the poor boy." He put into the captain's hand a long knife- practically a dirk. It was covered in blood, and long enough to uphold Stephen's theory that the boy was killed by an upward stab into his heart, one that angled under the ribcage.

"I don't see what this proves." Jack said after a moment.

"Look to the hilt, sir."

Stephen leaned closer so that he too could see the hilt. It was wrapped in leather to form a solid grip, and on the pommel of the blade was engraved a four point star. Jack turned it over in his hand and neither of them could restrain a hiss of horror.

The name _Coraline Turner_ was stitched into the grip.

"It couldn't have been." Stephen whispered. But it was all too possible. With the sighting of the dolphins nearly every man on the ship had come on deck. Cora had been alone in the orlop all this time. And surely in all the excitement no one would've noticed if one sailor slipped down below... "Don't act rashly, Jack. There must be some explanation."

It was too late. Jack had already stood and gone to the stairs and shouted to pass the word for Mr. Howard and his marines.

"Doesn't it strike you as suspicious that Davies was the one to find the body?" Stephen hissed when Jack returned.

"Are you accusing me of murdering an innocent sailor, sir? I've called men out for less!"

"And I've killed greater men than you for less. How is it that you've come to have blood on your hands in any case?"

Davies clenched his red right hand.

"I pulled out the blade and tried to stop the bleeding."

"Surely a weathered sailor such as yourself has seen that a man survives longer with the blade in rather than out?"

"He was dead when I arrived."

"Then why did you try and stop the bleeding?"

There was no time to continue. He could hear the marines above him, and Jack speaking in low angry tones. He ran down to the orlop and found Cora sleeping there, shook her awake and pulled her out of the hammock.

"What? What is it?"

"They're coming for you."

"Who? What?"

"Andersen is dead. The knife they found in his body has your name on it." He took a deep breath and cupped her face in his hands. "Please, tell me it wasn't you."

Cora dropped to her knees for a moment, and stood holding her right boot. She reached inside, feeling around for something, and dropped it with a word Stephen had never heard a lady say before in his life.

"My knife is gone. It was the only weapon they missed when I was taken prisoner." She reached up to run her hand through her hair.

Stephen's heart stopped when he saw the red smudge it left on her forehead.

"Your hand... what's on your hand?"

She looked down at her right hand in befuddlement and drew in a sharp breath of surprise. Stephen held her hand palm up and saw that it was covered with blood.

"It's my blood." She whispered. "The wounds on my ribs- they reopened. I must've slept with my hand on them." Her eyes were wild with fear- they could hear the marines now. "You must believe me!"

It was too much to hide too late. The marines burst into the orlop, Jack behind them. Cora was snatched away from him, thrown against the nearby wall and held there, manacles slapped onto her wrists. She didn't struggle.

Jack came to stand before her, searching her eyes. She looked right back at him. A myriad of emotions ran through her eyes- fear, desperation, anger, and finally... resignation.

"Take her away." The captain said.

"At least listen to what she has to say!" Stephen called as they turned to take her.

"She has nothing to say." Jack said in a toneless voice.

He turned to his friend with a look of disbelief on his face.

"Jack- Jack-"

"You shouldn't be so surprised, Doctor." Davies said from his place by the stairs. "You can't expect much better from a _pirate_."

There was a flurry of motion near the entrance as Cora pulled herself from the grasp of the marines so she could turn and face the room once more.

"And what is that supposed to mean, Mr. Davies? What is a pirate? Is it loving the sea and the freedom of the wind at your back and the horizon before you? Is it the thrill of chasing an enemy ship and counting the money it will bring you long before it has struck its colors? Is it the necessity of killing another man to stay alive?" She met eyes with every man in the room. "By that definition, every man here is a pirate."

No one could respond to her assertion, not for a good minute. Then the captain repeated his request:

"Take her away. Put her in the hold and keep a constant watch on her. She is to hang at dawn tomorrow at Isla Cruces for the murder of Kevin Andersen."

Then they were gone. Jack looked back once to Stephen, then left. Stephen sat on the hammock Cora had left. He could still feel her warmth. A little later, when it was fading, Blakeney came down to him and handed him his sketchbook.

"You left this on deck, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Blakeney."

He began to flip through the pages, but he was unable to absorb what he had drawn or written. Mr. Blakeney lingered at his side.

"I thought we knew her. Miss Turner, I mean."

His words caught Stephen on the page with his unfinished sketch of the mother dolphin and her scars. The whole situation struck him at once- it was unfinished. He hadn't said and done everything possible. Cora was innocent, and he was damned if he'd let her swing for a crime she didn't commit.

"It's a shame about her." Blakeney whispered, oblivious to the thoughts flying through his mentor's brain.

Stephen slammed shut his book.

"Not yet, it isn't."

* * *

A/N-- Wow, I actually didn't intend for that to happen. It was one of those twists that sort of popped out at me. Stay tuned to see how Stephen tries to save Cora! Reviews are always lovely. (especially those like FuchsiaII's, which was absolutely hysterical) 


	8. Treasure Hunt

A/N-- Welcome back, everyone! Without further ado, on to the story... 

This chapter is dedicated, with utmost affection, to my brand new miniture Schnauzer puppy, Captain Jack. Now will you please stop chewing my toes until they're raw?

* * *

Chapter Eight  
Treasure Hunt  
_in which the treasure is justice_

Billy Robinson was a textbook case of trauma when he came down to the orlop, two hours after Kevin Andersen was murdered: eyes dilated and skin pale and whole body shaking.

"I assume they just told you the news." Stephen said with a sympathetic air, looking at the sailor over his glasses. "My condolences- I hear you were close to Mr. Andersen."

"We... we been friends since we started out in the Service, sir. Always in the same watch, sir. No mistaking fate."

"We saw an ill fate today, didn't we?" He set his book aside and gestured to the operating table. "Please, lie down. It is time to change your bandages. How have you been feeling?"

"Pretty fine, sir, but now?"

"Do try to relax, Mr. Robinson. I don't want to hurt you." He began carefully pulling off each bloody strip, his mind full of unusual praise for the Navy's system of punishment and the opportunity it afforded him now. "I imagine you feel very betrayed by whomever killed your friend, don't you, Mr. Robinson? By Miss Turner, I mean."

No response for a moment. He put light pressure on the open cuts on Robinson's back as he pressed a fresh bandage on. The man drew in a hissing breath.

"I suppose so."

"You suppose? I'd have rather strong feelings on the matter."

"I don't feel betrayed, like, is what I mean."

"That's strange. Mr. Davies seemed to feel very betrayed when he discovered the body."

Robinson drew in another hissing breath, even though Stephen's hands were far from his back.

"You see, what is puzzling to me is that he hasn't been on the ship for very long. Did he know Mr. Andersen quite well?"

"We'd only spoken to him properly once."

"We? Yourself and Mr. Andersen, you mean? And Mr. Toner, perhaps?"

"...yes." The muscles in his back tensed. The ice beneath him was thin.

"And when did you have occasion to speak with Mr. Davies?"

"Three days ago, sir."

"The day before you attacked Miss Turner?"

"...yes. Sir." The ice shattered.

Stephen finished bandaging Robinson in silence and sent him on his way. Toner was waiting just outside the orlop when his friend passed by and muttered:

"Careful what you say to him. He's a right Inquisitor today. Always knew I couldn't trust a Papist."

Yet Stephen Maturin was utterly silent when he bandaged Alexander Toner's wounds, even if he did put a little more pressure on them than he needed to.

* * *

Stephen made the time to be eleven o'clock when he went topside once more in search of William Mowett. He was just a little too conscious of the time, in fact. He was well aware that, unless he discovered what he needed to discover, in twelve hours Cora would be long dead. 

The lieutenant in question was at the stern conversing with Bonden. Stephen sidled over and pretended to be interested in their discussion on the course and wind.

"So what brings you topside, Doctor? We haven't seen anymore dolphins." Bonden said after some time had passed.

"I wouldn't want to see any more dolphins," Mowett said, his characteristic bluster conspicuously absent. "They obviously didn't mean good luck this morning, what with the murder."

"No, they didn't." Stephen agreed. "It is an even greater shame that tomorrow we will bear witness to another death."

"I beg of you, sir, don't mention it. I can't stomach the thought of Miss Turner being hung." Mowett sighed and lifted his hat for a moment to smooth down his hair before settling it again. "I just can't fathom it, Doctor, not at all. How could she do it?"

"Perhaps he attacked her again."

"Then why didn't she confess? Surely she knew we'd take pity."

"I wouldn't be so certain. She was brought up to hate the Navy- who knows what stories she was told?" Bonden added.

"I'm curious, Mr. Mowett, did you happen to notice if Mr. Davies was on deck when the dolphins appeared? I was in such a fever I didn't stop to see."

"No, Doctor, he wasn't."

"He never came up?"

"No. I suppose that's why he was the one to find the body."

"I wonder why he was below deck while the rest of us went topside." Stephen mused. "As far as we can tell he and Miss Turner were the only ones below deck. And Mr. Andersen, the poor soul, of course."

"Yes, besides the powder monkey and a couple other sailors, but they are under no scrutiny." Mowett frowned. "If you don't mind my asking, Doctor, what are you hinting at?"

"I'm hinting at nothing," Stephen said mildly. "Good day to you, gentlemen."

He disappeared back into the ship's gut and wandered around, heading steadily deeper, until he found a passing sailor that could direct him to where the prisoner was being kept.

He'd never fully realized the depth of the Surprise until he found where Cora was. To him the food and supplies that kept them safe and alive appeared like magic; he knew, of course, that they were stowed somewhere on the ship and that the somewhere was called the hold, but his existence on the _Surprise_ rarely broached her highest and lowest reaches.

He knew he'd reached the end of his journey when he saw the scarlet coats of the marines standing beside the stacked crates and barrels that were forming a sort of holding cell at the moment, the brig remaining out of commission. Mr. Howard was there, along with two of his subordinates.

"Let me through, please." He said.

"Doctor, I'm under strict orders not to let anyone-"

"I should think that you owed me something, Mr. Howard."

Stephen knew it was a low blow- Howard had never forgiven himself for the accident with the albatross -but it worked. He had to see her.

She was leaning against the wall of the ship but sat up when the marines stood aside to let him into her little cubby. She looked as if she wanted to go to him, but they'd found heavy shackles for her feet.

"He'll do it, won't he?" She whispered when he came to crouch beside her. "He'll hang me."

"Not if I can help it." He whispered, pressing a brief kiss onto her forehead. "Let me see your wound."

She leaned back and lifted her shirt the way she had on the first day they met, exposing the smooth skin of her belly. The difference was that on the day they met he'd shown only a physician's interest, had seen only the injuries and was unconscious of the woman they belonged to. Now it took him a precious moment to recover his calm and push away the urgent desire to bend and kiss the skin of her navel and the few soft hairs that led to the waist of her breeches.

Just as she'd said, the shrapnel wounds were open once more and a thin trickle of blood issued from them when he touched them. More importantly, there was the red imprint of a hand on her skin and on the shirt above it. The blood that was on her hands when they came to arrest her was not Kevin Andersen's.

"I wish I could care for these." He said, his hands lingering on her skin.

"My mother told me that if a pirate hangs their soul is doomed to captivity forever." She gripped the front of his shirt with a sudden rattle of chains. "Don't let them hang me, Stephen. Shoot me if you have to but don't let them hang me, don't let them do it, I don't want to be hung..."

"I won't let them, I won't let them." He said it again and again and with each repetition kissed her face- her forehead, her cheekbones, her chin, her nose, and each eyelid. He leaned forward at last, lying almost on top of her, his hand on the bare skin of her ribs, to kiss her lips. He kissed her the way he first did, like he was helpless to stop himself. He kissed her like he was drowning because no matter how many times he said he wouldn't let her hang he was all too aware that this might be the last time he ever touched her. She clung every bit as fiercely to him.

"Dr. Maturin."

Mr. Howard's heavy words were a bitter dose of reality. Stephen drew slowly away from Cora and turned to see Jack standing beside the marines, his eyes hard and dark.

"My cabin." Was all he said before he walked away.

He rose. Cora still clung to him and he reached down to take her hand.

"I won't let you die." He whispered, and then walked away, the lonely rattle of her chains echoing in his head all the way to the great cabin.

Stephen let himself in. Jack was waiting with his back to the door. His normally ruddy face was livid with anger when he turned.

"What were you doing in there, Stephen?"

"I went to ascertain-"

"God damn you, you know what I meant! Do you realize what you have done, falling for her? You've just made what I have to do at dawn tomorrow a thousand times harder! I can't remember the last time you let a woman touch you like that, and now I have to kill her!"

"You are possessed of free will, Jack, you _have_ to do nothing."

"I would've already been in hot water at the Admiralty if I let her off with a pardon after we sunk the _Running_. My career would not survive if I didn't punish this crime with death. My hand is being forced in this."

"Your hand is being forced by Jonah Davies. He is the one behind this. Robinson admitted that he, Andersen and Toner spoke to Davies only once, and that was the day before they attacked Cora. They showed her no ill will before that. And Davies was the only one besides Cora and Andersen below deck when Andersen died. Cora was sleeping. The blood on her hands was hers! Davies has hated Cora from the moment she stepped on this ship, and when you didn't hang her straight away he resolved to find a way to force you."

"And how do you explain the knife?"

"She showed me where she kept it before she was taken. It had a place in her boots. Anyone could've come by and stolen it while she slept." He took a step closer to the captain. "Jack, for all love, you and I both know it wasn't her."

"She said herself she's killed a man before, what's to stop her now? She's a damned pirate, Stephen, born and bred." Jack snapped.

"Do you remember when you told me that it was my prerogative to view the world through a microscope, Jack?" Stephen asked in a low voice. "Well it's yours to view the world through a spyglass, and your view of it is no wider than mine."

Jack made a harsh angry sound and turned away from Stephen to regain his control. When he turned back his blue eyes were back to chips of ice.

"Miss Turner will die at dawn, unless you manage to find proof in writing that she did not kill Kevin Andersen."

Stephen dropped his gaze and ran a hand through his hair.

"Thank you for hearing me out." He said quietly, bitterly, then he turned and took his leave.

Every whispered promise, every kiss he gave her, had been a lie.

He went back to his cabin and tried to find something to distract himself- anything. He elaborated his sketch of the dolphin but couldn't bring himself to finish it entirely. He tried to write in his diary then settled for rereading it as far back as the first sighting of the _Acheron_. That provided the longest relief, until he reached the end. Every time the initials CT appeared was like a quick jab at his gut.

He tossed on his hammock after that. Even his treasured notes from their long-awaited trip to the Galapagos couldn't console him. His body counted every minute and the devil in his chest whispered how many left she had to live.

Around dinner he could no longer remain in the same place. Just before he went topside he paused at the scene of the crime. In the typical naval fashion it was already clean.

_Tomorrow past dawn no one will even know what happened here. No one but me._

"Excuse me, sir." Someone carrying a lantern was trying to get by. Stephen stepped out of the way but didn't remove his gaze from where it was fixed on the floor before him. If his gaze hadn't been downcast, he never would've seen the sudden interplay of light across something shining towards the base of the wall.

He ran down to his cabin and seized his own lantern, then walked carefully by that section once more. He dropped to his stomach when he saw the glimmer, setting the lantern down beside him. His stomach dropped through the floor when he read the writing in blood on the wall.

_Jonah Davies MURDERER

* * *

_

It didn't take much for Robinson to confess: Davies had approached them the day they met with the _Beacon_ and asked them to make a pact to send Miss Turner to the gallows. The first stage in their plan was to attack her and see if they could put any black marks in the book against her; when that failed, Davies said more drastic steps were needed. He came to their berth when the rest of their watch was already on deck and told Andersen to steal one of the weapons confiscated from Miss Turner when she was captured. But Andersen had seen Cora using her own knife when they were on watch together and stole that instead.

It was the last time either sailor had seen their comrade. Davies must have killed Andersen with the knife the moment he gave it to him. All throughout this, Toner stood by with sullen eyes but didn't say anything to the contrary. Davies put up a strong defense when they came for him- they probably heard him shouting all the way back in Portsmouth -but in the end he was the one in irons.

The master at arms gave Stephen the key to unlock the manacles. Cora's eyes were closed and her lips moved in soundless prayer as he removed the heavy shackles and pulled her to her feet.

"I told you I wouldn't let you die."

"I know," She smiled. "But there were a few hours when it was hard to believe."

He led her out of the small cell they'd created so their three new prisoners could take residence. They were to be court-martialed at the earliest possible time.

Jack was waiting for them on deck.

"Miss Turner, there is no apology strong enough for what has happened here. I spoke in haste and in error when I accused you, and for that all I can say is that I am deeply sorry."

She just smiled weakly and shook her head.

"It's not the first time I've stood in the shadow of the gallows, sir."

Mr. Mowett had just seen that Cora was free and while the ship was in an uproar he went over to her to express his glee, giving Jack enough time to pull Stephen aside.

"Stephen, earlier-"

Stephen stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Never speak of it, joy. She is safe."

Jack gave him a smile, but it was as strong as Cora's had been. She was looking over at them now- looking at Stephen. Looking at him in a way that made his spine shiver in his skin, looking at him in a way that made him wish they were somewhere utterly alone, with all the time in the world, with no ghosts to haunt them and no reprisal to fear.

Jack caught the look and gave Stephen a knowing one of his own. Some things haven't changed, the look said.

"Never speak of it, joy," He repeated. "Let me have her for now."

"For now." Jack replied.

The cry of 'Land ahoy!' went up and the ship exploded into a different kind of preparation. Each man looked nervously to the water around them, afraid that their quarry might have reached her den before they did.

Isla Cruces was on the horizon.

* * *

A/N-- Total _Da Vinci Code_ moment with the blood on the wall, huh? That was the last fandom I wrote in, so I let a little slip in. After all, the movie had Paul Bettany. --yayness-- Review, or I'll set Mr. Davies loose and tell him that you're all pirates! (lol) 


	9. Canned Heat

A/N- A nice long chapter for all of you today. A nice long rated M chapter. That's right, this chapter has Rated M content, but not enough for me to rate the whole fic M (in my opinion). Ye be warned.

* * *

Chapter Nine  
Canned Heat  
_in which our characters' course is indelibly altered_

Night was deepening when Stephen and Cora at last returned to the orlop at Jack's behest. It would take time for it to sink into the crew's collective skull that she wasn't the murderer, and he wasn't about to have another crime on his hands.

"Let me see that wound of yours." He said when they arrived. Her shirt was still tinged red with blood.

She'd taken his bandages off some time before, so he was forced to put new ones on and redo some of his stitching when she sat on his table and pulled her shirt out of the way. They were utterly silent when he did so, and utterly comfortable as well. They could feel the heavy press of nearby land, but here in the relative darkness it was easy to pretend it wasn't there. There was no rush to leave, nowhere else to go. They didn't want to be anywhere but where they were.

"Hopefully you won't get much of a scar."

"It wouldn't matter if I did. I already have so many."

She took his hands and led him to trace the scars he'd vaguely noticed before- the thin whiplash one on the other side of her ribs (a cutlass), the bullet hole a little higher up (that one nearly killed her) and a dozen other scrapes and cuts that he'd seen on every sailor (a snapped line, flying wood, a myriad of everyday accidents that left their indelible mark). Then she pulled on his wrists so that he was touching her back and his hands glided higher of their own accord.

He jerked at the sudden sensation of thin ridges and bumps and remembered what she'd said when she saw Andersen's back- _I've been under the cat before. Let me help with the wounds._ The worst one was a long slash from her right shoulder down almost to her left hip, a knotted scar that clearly hadn't healed well.

"From my mother." Cora whispered, her hands on his shoulders. "I left the ship one day in Tortuga and got myself completely drunk with a friend of mine- Finn Walsh. We raised hell for a while and ended up getting chased off into his ship. I stayed at sea with him a week before we were caught by the Navy and escaped by the skin of our teeth. When I finally got back to my mother she was furious. Even my father couldn't stop her." She laughed quietly. "'Twelve lashes for desertion, girl, and heaven help you if you cry out during one.'"

"Was there no one to dress the wounds?" Stephen asked, mentally damning the man who'd called himself a surgeon and done up these cuts. Had it been him they would've been much neater. There'd be no scars to haunt her. No woman should have such scars.

"Anamaria did it. We've never had a regular surgeon. But she knows something of herbs and such, and all of us have bandaged a wound or two. I kept pulling her stitches out, that's why they didn't heal so well."

"I see."

He was about to pull his hands back when she leaned closer and moved her hands to rest on his chest.

"And what of you? Do you have many scars?"

She slid every button of his vest out of its hole and tugged on his shirt until it came free of his breeches, then after a moment's hesitation ran her hands on the surface underneath it. They were nowhere near as soft as the ladies' hands Stephen had known, nor were they quite rough. They were hardened hands. The difference in texture made him shiver and grip her arms.

"Still healing." She murmured, finding the smooth pink skin in the shape of a bullet as her hands traveled downward once more. "From that French ship I've heard about?"

"From the marine captain, Mr. Howard. An accident, I assure you."

"I see." She withdrew her hands and then left them in her lap, uncertain. "Part of the reason my mother whipped me was because she thought Finn and I had... fooled around, when I went off with him. But I didn't. I did kiss him, though. He was my first kiss. He said he loved me. I couldn't love him back. Not at that time in my life. That was right before Jack died." She bore holes through her folded hands with her eyes. "And you? Have you ever loved someone?"

"I did, once. But she never loved me back." He started at his own words. When did he stop loving Diana?

Cora noticed his shock and bit her lip.

"I didn't mean to- that is to say, I didn't want to-" She laughed. "Bloody hell, this is hard. I can't think straight with you this close to me."

"I'd imagine narrowly escaping death didn't help your acuity either." He smiled wryly. He took her hands and looked at the wrists; they were chafed near to bleeding from wearing the shackles. He raised the right hand and kissed the tender skin.

"You have scars here too." He murmured, rubbing his thumb along the place he just kissed. He met her eyes again and saw that she was watching him through her eyelashes. Her lips were slightly parted.

"I've been chained so many times I don't think I've ever really been free." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she stood from the table. "I want to be free."

The kiss started slow, a tiny peck, then arms around necks and parted lips and a dart of tongue that made Cora shiver. It was a slow building, a crescendo that worked itself into a fever pitch, and Stephen found himself wondering as he pressed her back against the table if that was the way she played the violin, with such fever, if that was how it would feel when they-

He jerked away, holding her at arm's length. His loss of control whirled through him and he struggled to regain it. She stood looking at him with swollen lips and hurt eyes for some time before he found the strength to speak through his longing.

"They... they would know. Everyone. There is nowhere on this ship we could be safe. Nowhere we could be alone. There isn't even a decent bed, for all love. And I couldn't... Cora, the first thing you ever said to me was that you weren't a whore. I can't-"

She put a hand to his lips.

"Stephen Maturin, I want you, and it is the simplest thing in our world right now. Tell me that you don't feel the same and I will never do this again."

He couldn't.

She took a shuddering breath and smoothed down the front of his shirt, carefully buttoning his vest once more. Her hands were shaking.

"On the north side of Isla Cruces there is a ruined church and thick jungle. Some distance into the jungle there is a small pool of freshwater and a cave with bats in it. Sometime tomorrow, when we've made camp, say that you are going to see the bats. Say they're some rare species. Make your own camp there and wait for me." She gripped the front of his vest now that it was buttoned. "I'm a pirate. When I want something, I have an inclination to come and take it, damn the costs. I _will_ find a way to come to you."

Every iota of logic and every grain of sense in Stephen told him that it was madness. Their world was balanced on the edge of an alreadybloodysword. An action like this could- would -send it tumbling. It could destroy them both. But he remembered her body against his only moments before and realized that there was no way that he could say no.

Cora was right- they wanted each other, and it was the simplest thing in their world at present. If he said no and let her walk away from this, or if (God forbid) she should die in the battle to come, she would become another phantom of his waking and sleeping thoughts, another reason to count the drops of laudanum. Another Diana.

Perhaps there was something to be said for sailors- and pirates -in singular pursuit of a prize. They thought only of obtaining it, and they pursued it without hesitation. They usually got what they wanted. He wished only that he could be pirate enough to ignore the inevitable costs.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight against his chest and agreed.

* * *

"How the devil did that waterwheel get there in the shallows?" Jack asked as the _Surprise_ spilled the wind from her sheets off the coast of Isla Cruces, bringing her to a near stop on the sea. 

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." Miss Turner said with a wry shake of her head and a glance at the heavens.

"Then tell me where the best place to wait for the _Running_ would be."

The pirate went to the rail and scanned the coast for a moment. Somewhere in the course of her stay on the ship she'd lost her bandana, and her hair was free to play on the wind.

"Sail around for another hour or so. On the northeast coast is where we have our cache. There's a deep cove there where you can anchor the Surprise and keep watch." She paused. "There are some interesting ruins nearby there."

Jack noticed her swift glance to Stephen, but the captain's closest friend didn't seem to. He couldn't say what the look meant, but he felt uneasy after its passing, as if shoals were rearing under his lee.

"Thank you very much, Miss Turner." He turned now to address the crew. "Lads, we're taking a bit of shore leave tonight, so get ready to make camp. We'll watch for the _Running_ from there. Miss Turner has informed me that they are likely to approach from the north, but I'd keep a weather eye out in all directions. For now set only the courses and get me a constant reading of the depth. I don't trust these shallows."

True to Miss Turner's word, after an hour of sailing around the island they found a deep cove to anchor in. The sailors loaded themselves and their provisions into the longboats and headed ashore to set up camp on the flat, grassy area above the beach. Jack's sea legs made the ground seem too solid as he moved about directing the construction of the camp. The sensation irritated him vaguely, but he forgot it when he saw Stephen stumbling about the sandy slope, clearly having more trouble with it than he.

"There you are, Stephen. Let me help you. You are not injured, old soul? Good. Would you like some help with your own quarters for our stay? I'm sure someone is idle."

"No, thank you. I've heard that there is a prodigious rare species of bat living in a cave on this island- I intend to observe them tonight when they are active, so I'll sleep away from the camp. If you could, just give me a tent and something to sleep on and I'll set it up on my own."

"Must there be some sort of strange beast on every island we go to?" Jack sighed. "Very well. But just for tonight, if it can be helped. I don't want you to be out there alone when the _Running_ arrives. I'll need you in the battle."

"Of course," Stephen murmured. "Just for tonight."

"Are you quite well?" Jack frowned.

"Yes, of course. Do I look ill?"

"Not now. But for a moment..." Jack lost his train of thought when he saw Miss Turner coming towards them, the last longboat unloading behind her. "Miss Turner, do you intend to stay the night here in the camp with the crew, or on the _Surprise_?"

"Here on land, if it's no trouble to you, captain."

"Not at all. You shall have the other tent to yourself, the doctor has just declined it."

"Thank you, sir." She walked away without a backward glance to see about setting it up. Blakeney, Mowett and even a few brave sailors approached her, trying to cajole her into joining a friendly card game. She smiled and allowed them to pull her along. Both Jack and Stephen watched as she went, until at last Stephen broke the spell.

"I shall leave as well. I'm not sure how long it will take me to find the cave. Until tomorrow, Jack."

Jack said his good-byes and watched Stephen begin to pack the things he'd require. A few of the sailors had already improvised a game of cricket and others were organizing a hunt. Within a week, the _Running_ would be his and he could go home to reap the rewards of the _Acheron's_ capture. It was as perfect a scene as he could wish. But the world still felt unsteady beneath his feet, and it wasn't just because of his sea legs.

* * *

Stephen found the old church without much difficulty, since it was the only landmark on the island. He avoided the graves that pockmarked its yard, many of which were open and simply asking for an unsuspecting man to walk by and fall in. He nearly did so once or twice before heading into the dense jungle behind it. 

After that it was harder, especially with the few crates he was carrying to make his tale seem more believable and the pack on his back. It wasn't until much later he found the clearing Cora spoke of.

They couldn't hope for a more private spot. The clearing, an egg shape perhaps a hundred feet in length and fifty in width, was surrounded on every side by the same thick foliage he'd fought through. A clear, round pool took up much of it, but there was still room enough for his small pavilion. The pool was bordered by the large rock formation that housed the cave.

After resting and drinking from the pool, Stephen began to set up the tent. With every move he made he realized how foolish, how irrational this was. He still couldn't stop himself from feeling the occasional tremor of anticipation.

His labor done, he headed into the cave to see if there was any truth to the lie he'd fed Jack. There were bats, but he didn't make them out to be any rarity. Sitting in the cool darkness watching them made him a little heartsick for his castle in Spain and the bats he'd always watched there. It had been far, far too long since he'd been to his real home.

_When all this is over, I'll go back there._ He decided. But who could say how all this would end? Would he take Cora home with him? It is impossible to know the future. With that he banished the thoughts from his head.

He spent the rest of the day in solitude, reading, writing, even taking another walk through the jungle. Cora hadn't said when she'd come to him. She'd simply sworn that she would. He trusted her to uphold that promise.

Night came with agonizing slowness and he retreated into the tent when darkness fell. He'd brought no candles and no lantern, so he could read no more. Instead he lay on the bed he'd made until there was no option but too sleep.

* * *

When Stephen woke he wasn't sure how long he'd slept or what exactly woke him. He sat up slowly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the deep nighttime gloom, and started a bit when he saw someone framed in the door his tent. It took another moment before some moonlight happened to pass by and silhouette the female body. He got to his feet and took a step or two forward. Cora met him close to the door. 

They both trembled and barely kept their lips together. Stephen put steadying hands on her shoulders and found her muscles in tight knots. One sleeve of her shirt had already slipped off and he was startled by the bare skin. He smoothed his hand over it as her hand found the open neck of his shirt and touched him. They broke their kiss at last and found each other's eyes. They glistened in the dark.

There were leaves in her hair from her trek through the jungle- he pulled them out before he took her hand and led her backwards towards the low bed he'd created out of blankets and pillows. She pushed on his shoulders and he sat down on it; he pulled on her waist so she'd sit straddling his legs. She pulled her shirt over her head. His hands went once more to the healing cuts on her side, the first part of her he'd ever touched.

She took his hand and guided it up to her face so she could kiss the palm.

"Are you a doctor tonight, or will you be my lover?"

"I will be whatever you ask of me."

He could sense her smile in the dark and she kissed him open-mouthed. He left the wounds be.

She freed him of his shirt and tossed it aside, then moved forward so that she straddled his hips. The entire length of their bodies touched and they could feel the fever of their naked skin. Cora jerked at the sudden contact and the feel of the hardened flesh between her thighs. For the first time, the import of what they were doing seemed to hit her. She shifted on top of him like a horse about to shy, clearly unaware that this didn't help what either of them was feeling. He'd never doubted her when she said she wasn't a whore.

"Never worry, soul." Stephen whispered, stroking her fine dark hair. "Don't be afraid." He had no idea what he could mean by the words.

"I'm not." She countered, kissing him with more force. "I'm not afraid of this. I'm only afraid of the after. I'm afraid you'll see that I'm really only good at sailing and fighting. Though I'm told experience is the best teacher here too."

Stephen laughed and kissed her again, more lingeringly this time. He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her body. He tried to roll them gracefully onto the bed but failed, landing squarely on top of her. His body pulsed with the need to remain there and bring the contact even closer, to drive himself into her until their bodies were one. His hips pressed down against hers in the most ancient instinct known to mankind.

He had to sit up for her to pull off his breeches and his smalls. Then Cora raised her hips for him, so he could pull off the rest of her clothes. Very slowly, she pulled him back to her. Her kisses were more hesitant now, and Stephen pulled back to look her in the eyes one final time. There was no trace of hesitation there, though, and he reflected that while men had said that woman was the one who submitted to man in intercourse and was therefore lesser, in truth it was the woman who gave permission and was therefore equal.

"Hold fast," He caught her saying as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

Afterwards was nothing but instinct. No thought of the consequences, or of the great After that had frightened Cora. She didn't even seem to feel pain when he entered her. He had paused, but she kissed him with an urgency that begged him to go on.

He didn't register how long they were joined. All he could feel was a steady building heat within them both, canned by their skins and all their fears. He registered the flex of her muscles and the strain of his as she tightened around him and came.

_Inside of her is as wet as without_, he managed to think before the heat flashed over him too and he collapsed on top of her, slack with completion.

When he came down from his high Stephen tried to draw himself out of Cora, but she stopped him with a hand on the small of his back.

"I like it this way." She murmured, kissing his neck and what she could reach of his chest. "Again later, perhaps?" She asked, her breath warm on his cooling skin.

He had to roll away from her then so he could laugh to himself. She was not far behind, nestling into his side.

"I have never heard you laugh so much before."

"If hearing me laugh twice in one night is surprising, I must be a very dull man."

"Don't worry, love. If you weren't a dull man tonight would've been slightly more painful."

They both laughed now, and contented themselves with lying close together. Cora was tracing patterns on Stephen's skin, a mesmerizing dance. She seemed to be drumming up her courage, for when she spoke it was cautiously.

"Am I a whore now, Stephen?"

"Not in the smallest sense, joy. Not at all."

She rolled on top of him and kissed him, and they decided as one that 'later' had come.

* * *

Cora awoke feeling muddled. There was no ship to rock her back to sleep and the light was too bright to pretend it was still nighttime. 

"It was the nightingale, and not the lark..." She mumbled to herself, remembering her grand-godfather teaching herself and her sister to read with a pilfered copy of Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_. She'd always thought the scene where they parted after their wedding night was the most tragic in the play. Death was one thing, but it was finite and final. There was no uncertainty, no days spent wondering whether the one they loved was dead or alive. The hope was what made it tragic.

Oddly enough, it took her a bit to realize that there was someone lying beside her, and a bit longer for the night before to come trickling back. She nestled down in the covers again, feeling vaguely embarrassed. Stephen was lying on his back, one hand on his stomach, while she curled up against his side. His other arm was around her loosely, and his body emanated a pleasing heat.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate... And rough winds do shake the darling buds of May..." Speaking Shakespeare aloud had a feel of the forbidden. Her mother had outlawed it on the _Running_ after Jack died. All of this had a feeling of the forbidden. But it wasn't wrong.

She kissed the pale curve of his bare shoulder and then lay her cheek there, and it felt so good just to rest her head, to forget everything around them and everything they would have to go back to. She could feel him stirring at her touch and kissed him again and again in the same spot, then moved up to kiss his neck and then his ear.

"A thousand times good morning..." She whispered to him when he opened his eyes.

Stephen blinked once or twice and then made a sound of sleepy confusion, which made Cora laugh. She rolled onto her back and laughed and laughed as she had never laughed before. It occurred to her that she had never felt so free as she did now, lying naked on her back in the shimmering heat of the Caribbean beside a man that she had only known for two weeks that she loved unequivocally. The closest sensation to it was the first time she took the helm of the _Running_ in her hands and was granted the freedom of the seas.

She sent that memory away quickly. She didn't want to think of her mother now. She drowned it by kissing Stephen long and deep. He mumbled something against her mouth and kissed her back, rolling her onto her back once more.

"Were you quoting Shakespeare?" Stephen asked, laying on top of her. "Mm-hmm." Cora stretched her arms above her head and moved her hair so that it was splayed above her on the pillow. Stephen was enticed by her revealed neck and sucked on a spot, making her shiver and grasp his wrist.

They kissed for a long while after that, or just lay there holding each other. Now that their bodies had accustomed to the heat it was hard to break apart; it welded them together with sweat.

"We should probably clean up before we get back." Stephen remarked.

"Do you think it isn't obvious already?" Cora said, a little darkly, following his train of thought.

Soon they moved to the pool nearby, not bothering to put on their clothes. Out of habit they cleaned themselves at first, but then when Cora was bending over to cup water in her hands and throw it on her face, Stephen rested his hand very lightly on the small of her back.

She stood and he took her hand, leading her out until the water pooled around her narrow waist and his hips. Stephen cupped the water in his hand and trickled it slowly over her head, doing it again and again until it was wet through. His fingers slid through the wet strands slowly, lovingly, and then he tipped her head back and kissed her. Cora reached behind him and reached for water too, trickling it down his back and giggling at his shiver. Her hands rubbed up and down the length of his back, giving his rear the occasional affectionate squeeze.

Stephen stepped back from Cora, for the first time able to see her form in full. He began to trickle the water over her body just for the joy of watching it run over her breasts. He went to test the weight of one in his hand and was a little muddled when Cora drew away, covering the pebbled pink nipple with her hand. He stole a glance at her face and saw the shyness written there, then smiled and gently moved her hand away, replacing it with his own, and then with his mouth. She rewarded him with a soft sigh as she lifted one leg and wrapped it around him. Their bodies formed an arc whose reflection they could just glimpse, a perfect circle. Her long dark hair cascaded to pool in the water. Her hips rubbed forward against his, sending out spirals of currents.

He sensed her desire and found his body responding despite the cool water. His hand dipped below its surface and ran down the length of her leg, pulling it up to join its fellow. They swayed, searching for balance. Cora was at just the right height to kiss him, her damp hair falling in his face and still smelling like saltwater somehow. Stephen tried to ease into her, but the angle wasn't what either of them wanted. Neither of them could move, and the moment Cora tried to Stephen was toppling back through the water.

Sunlight filtered down from above them and they swam through its mingling beams in a daze until they were on the pond's shore. The tent was mere steps away, but it may as well have been another world. Stephen was inside Cora in one swift glide. He crushed her against the shore, each stroke driving home again and again until she was whimpering, clawing at his back, biting his shoulder. They didn't care about the marks they would leave; Cora had been right. Everyone would already know. For now they wanted to claim each other so that they both knew- _you belong to someone, and so you will never be alone._

They surged together in a final tidal wave, then lay spent with the water sucking at their sides the way it touched the hull of a ship, a second embrace around them. Stephen rested his lips against Cora's cheek, too lazy to really kiss her, and tasted saltwater once more. For a hazy moment he believed they'd made love on the shore of the sea and not a tiny pool. But their world was not boundless. It was circumscribed by duty and tradition. It wasn't hard to fathom why there were tears on her cheeks, tears that tasted of the sea.

"I'm sorry." Stephen said as Cora rose, seeing the small trickle of blood between her thighs. He raised himself on his knees and kissed her belly. She ran her fingers through his short hair.

"Don't be."

They went back to the tent and tried to get dressed but couldn't resist joining just once more, half-clothed and languorous. In the end it was just an excuse to go back to being naked and clean up once more, and steal a few extra kisses. The morning was moving on as they finally packed up their tent.

At first as they walked their hands were relaxed at their sides, but then out of habit Stephen caught her hand and put it in the crook of his arm. Arlen leaned against him with the force of her laughter- "Where do you think we are, Hyde Park?" -and then disentangled their arms, entwining their fingers instead. He'd never walked that way with anyone before.

They swung their hands a bit as they walked, and eventually Stephen reached over to pull the bandana out of her hair so it could swing free. She laughed again, and seemed so different than when she was with the crew. He decided that she was consummately feminine out here- that brought a flush of heat to his body, remembering just how feminine she was naked in the pool -and that was the difference. On the Surprise she was just as coarse as the other sailors, and constantly en guarde with her expression and words and deeds. She was constantly defending herself. Here, with him, she was at ease.

He lifted her hand to press his lips to it, and then they stopped in a clearing to share a kiss.

Soon they could hear the roar of the surf. Cora was the first to let go and step away. She carried his crates to keep him from taking her hand again. Her face fell back into its usual composure, and her hair was swept up underneath the bandana she'd tucked into the waist of her breeches. Only a few strands escaped and clung to her sweaty neck, begging to be kissed.

Some naval- or piratical -sense caused Cora to speed up as they neared the encampment. It certainly sounded loud, but she frowned and seemed to pick something up from the nautical clamor that Stephen didn't. She was jogging as they cleared the jungle, and even Stephen felt a rising sense of panic. Then the shouted words became clear.

"Sail ho! Sail ho!"

They ran down the sandbar, Cora flinging the empty cages aside. She looked faint when Stephen caught up and could see her face. Her eyes were trained on the sails in the horizon, with look of utmost horror. Ice clenched his gut when he thought about what it could mean; Cora's choked mutter was an afterthought, a horrible confirmation that their dream was over.

"She's here. Oh God, she's here."

It was the _Running_.

* * *

A/N-- Uh-oh. Here comes Mama Starre, and chances are she ain't happy... well, there's my first full-blown lemon. I'm almost scared to hear what anyone thinks of it. But reviews would still be nice! 

Sadly, I won't be able to update for a while. I'm going off camp to train to be a Girl Scout counselor (that's right, I'm going to be corrupting little kiddies) and I won't be back until August 11th. Try and hold on without me!


	10. Comeuppance

A/N- Thank you thank you thank you for such an awesome response to the last chapter! Of course the sudden spike in feedback tells me that sex equals reviews... but let's not go there. Not while I'm still operating on only 4 hours of sleep. 

I've got nothing much else to say but hold on to yer hats.

* * *

Chapter Ten  
Comeuppance  
_in which the storm breaks_

"I want everyone on the _Surprise_ in five minute's time! Lower canvas and clear the deck for action!"

Jack's blood boiled with the urgency of battle the moment he saw the sails. The once peaceful camp, the sight of song and dance and card games the night before, was now crawling with sailors as eager as he was for close action and a decisive finish. It was time to put their rudder to this trying business and refuse to look back.

He was watching the loading of the longboats when he remembered Stephen- damn his eyes, he was still in the jungle. It was well nigh noon and he hadn't returned. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the doctor coming towards him at a fast clip, following the curve of the beach, Miss Turner at his side. His heart sank when he saw her. At least he knew where she was now- no one had been able to find her at the first sighting of sail. Stephen's request to sleep out in the jungle made sense all at once.

_There's no time for that now._ He chastised as they got closer. _That's Stephen's mess to sort out, once this is all over. I hope the dear old Surprise can bear all her canvas today- the Running could give us her topgallants in this sort of wind easy as kiss my handif she moves the way I think.  
_

"Don't launch the boats yet!" Miss Turner said breathlessly when they were upon him. "Look at the direction she comes from. She can't have seen the Surprise yet- it's hidden by the jungle over there. She's going to come ashore. Captain, you could take her without a scrap of harm to either ship."

"Where will she go once she's ashore?"

"I can show you. We can set a trap there and take her. She'll bring the better part of the crew with her to carry supplies. We're low on men as it is. If we capture them the _Running_ won't have enough men to put up a fight."

Jack looked to the sails in the distance, and then to the prisoner's frantic eyes. It stood to reason that she wouldn't want it harmed- everyone and everything she loved was aboard that ship.

_Well, not everything._ He thought, glancing at Stephen.

"Show me quickly." He said, feeling ready to set another trap.

* * *

"We've never left her this long." 

Captain Arlen Turner, nee Starre, looked from the island before her and back at the woman rowing their longboat.

"Left who?" She asked absently, her mind full of preparations. Would they need two additional casks of beef or just one? One, she decided. It wouldn't take long to catch the Surprise. She was certain to be looking for them now. Once they sank her it was home to Alameade. Yes, one cask would do.

"Your daughter." Anamaria's voice was ice. "We've never left her this long aboard an enemy ship."

"We've never faced a ship quite this formidable, either. Not since the _Deliverance_. Did you hear about her action with that French privateer?" Her first mate shook her head. "Well, I did. He followed her halfway around the world. She had nearly twice his guns, and he brought her down in a matter of minutes. Leading him on another long chase has probably left his crew tired and angry. That's why she's still there."

"Have you ever once considered the kind of danger she might be in?"

"She can handle herself. She's never been hurt yet."

"Arlen-"

"That's _Captain_ to you, Anamaria, and are you questioning my orders?"

"Lone Star," She said in a quieter voice, invoking the old childhood name. The name no one called her anymore, the name that died on the eve of the new century with Jack Sparrow and a girl called Black Wolf.

"Lone Star, tell me this is the last Navy ship we'll go after. They don't put any money in our pockets, and they don't bring back the dead."

The captain's hand tightened on the edge of the longboat. Sand ground beneath them and she stepped out onto the shore and surveyed Isla Cruces. Voices echoed in her head- Will, Elizabeth, and the rum-sodden voice of a beloved godfather loudest of all. Jack. A voice she would never hear again.

Had she killed enough men to silence that voice?

Then another voice arose. The voice of treachery. The voice of the Commodore who destroyed them all.

"Lone Star?"

It would never be enough.

"We will take on provisions. We will find the _Surprise_. We will burn her to the water and kill every man on board, and we will get Cora back. And we will continue to do what we have done until the hangman finally comes for us."

She walked up the beach in the direction of their cache, expecting the crew to follow as they had followed the captains who came before her. They did, but their steps were heavy and their eyes were questioning.

The jungle embraced them and they had to hack their way through, guided by Arlen's sense of direction. Anamaria fell behind, but the captain was joined by another presence.

"Momma, something's not right."

"What do you mean, Ashli?" She spared a glance for her younger daughter.

"I found this."

They were almost to the clearing that house their cache, so Arlen waited until they were clear of the jungle to look at what Ashli held in her hands. It was a cricket bat, and with it a ball. She took them with a frown.

"Who would've-"

Then the world was fire and smoke.

* * *

When the longboats arrived and the pirates they contained disembarked Stephen knew instantly which was the captain. She too wore a blue bandana, dangling her hat at her side. She had the same build and coloring, and Stephen was willing to bet that she had her eyes.  
He spared time only to count how many pirates were with her before he and Bonden were streaking through the jungle, back to the shack where the rest of the Surprises were waiting. 

"There's at least fifty of them." Bonden panted.

"And the captain?" Jack asked.

"She's there."

"Very well. Lads, you know your task. Form a circle but wait to strike until they're all in the clearing. Avoid killing the captain if you can." He turned from the waiting crew back to Stephen and Barrett. "How did you know who the captain was? Is she very different from the others in dress?"

"She looks just like Miss Turner." Stephen responded. Jack turned back to the men.

"You heard the doctor. Now take your places, and God go with you."

They heard the cutlasses in the vines and the heavy footsteps before they ever saw them. Jack and Stephen waited close by the shack, their fingers already growing sweaty on the triggers of their pistols. The rest of the Surprises, a good quarter of their crew, were in a loose circle around the clearing, ready to tighten to noose once the pirates were inside. Cora was in the shack beside them, at her own request. That was why when the captain stepped into the clearing ahead of her crew Stephen second-guessed himself; he realized with a clench of his heart that she indeed had the same eyes.

A younger woman who looked much the same as the captain came into the clearing next to her. She had darker hair and dark brown eyes, but Stephen assumed that this was the sister Cora had mentioned- Ashli.

Jack swore under his breath when he saw what she held: the cricket ball and bat the men were playing with the day prior.

Cora's mother raised her head after seeing these items and looked around, like a horse that hears a noise. She'd just started to speak when the last of her crew filled the clearing.

"Who would've-"

It started in a hail of gunfire. At least ten of the pirates fell right away. The others drew their own weapons and whirled around with fright, searching for their assailants. Jack drew his saber and led the charge into the clearing.

The pirates formed a tight bunch, spinning and each mentally counting their enemies. The Surprises formed a bristling circle around them, waiting for a signal.

"You are soundly beaten. I suggest that you do not attempt to fight back." Jack said.

The pirate captain turned to face her Navy counterpart and smiled.

"Why, I do believe you're captain of the vessel I intend to destroy. Fancy that. I didn't expect to see you before I was slitting your throat with your own sword." She, like her daughter, spoke with an English accent.

"I fear it's your sword that will be in my hands. Surrender your crew and vessel now or we will have no choice but to shoot."

The captain looked around, her smile morphing, and then stood from her fighting crouch. She was undoing the belt that housed her sword as she spoke.

"I'm curious, Captain, before I hand this over- where is my daughter? What did you do to her to make her tell you where we would be? Nothing untoward, I hope."

"They didn't do anything to me."

Cora wormed her way through the rows of sailors facing the shack, brushing past Stephen and Jack as she did so, until she stood in front of her mother.

"You're delirious. They must've tortured you, or else you never would've told them of this place. Now, come. If I must surrender my only term is that you are given back to me."

"No." Cora said softly. "I am not yours to use as a bargaining chip anymore."

The captain frowned a little, her eyes narrowing, then sighed.

"I shouldn't be surprised. You always did have too much Turner blood in you. The lot of you never could square with the fact that you're pirates. You were always trying to balance on the edge of a knife. But, if that's how you really feel..." She stepped forward and held out her sword in her left hand.

Jack took a step forward to meet her. His hand was about to close on the scabbard of her cutlass. Then her right hand came up with its pistol and fired.

The pirates turned and rushed the sailors, hacking to get away. The sailors couldn't fire for fear of hitting their fellows across the clearing. Stephen caught Jack as he fell.

"After them!" He roared, but his attempt to raise his saber ended in a choked cry. Stephen lay him down and then saw the blood welling from a space two inches below his right collarbone. The pirates were starting to get through the sailors. "Don't let them get to the boats!"

"Lie still, I have to-"

"There's no time!" Jack heaved himself to his feet.

Stephen picked up his dropped saber and thought to hand it to Cora, since she had no weapon. It was only then that he noticed she was gone.

They crashed through the jungle, following the trail of used pistols and bodies. Then flames- where had they started? The jungle burned, the sailors were trapped. Jack was lagging, his hand pressed to his shoulder. Stephen supported him, turning in a circle, searching for a way out.

"Over here!" He could see a break in the foliage several yards away, sunlight streaming through. They ran as one towards it, each man praying that the flames wouldn't reach it before they did, and that when they escaped the flames it wouldn't be too late.

* * *

Cora thought for sure her wrist would break before they broke free of the jungle, her mother's grip was so strong. Bullets whizzed around her, took down a nearby pirate. The jungle was full of screams. 

"What the hell are you doing, Lone Star?" Anamaria was running beside them, turning to fire at the pursuing sailors with one of her many guns.

"We're going to get into the boats and back onto the Running. Set fire to the jungle to keep them from following."

They broke free of the foliage sooner than the sailors and while part of their group turned to keep them at bay the other seized driftwood and pulled the triggers of empty guns to set sparks to them. They threw them at the sailors and at the trees, until Isla Cruces was in flame.

"Stop it!" Cora shrieked. Stephen was in that jungle. "You have to stop!"

"Shut your mouth. I just saved your life."

"Let me go! I don't want to come with you!"

Her mother froze as they neared the longboats. Most of the crew was already in. Only her sister Ashli and her uncle remained.

"We don't have time, Arlen, they're-" He started to say.

"What do you mean, you don't want to come?" Her mother broke through.

"I mean exactly what I said. I will not go back with you." She jerked her wrist free of her mother's grasp. "Don't you understand? I betrayed you. I told them about our cache here. I was willing to sacrifice our ship to get a full pardon. I'm done."

Her mother reeled. Very slowly, so that the furious battle in the background seemed a distant thing indeed, she took her daughter by the shoulders.

"Why are you doing this, Cora?" Arlen didn't seem confused- only angry. "Why?" She shook her until Cora's teeth rattled.

"Because you aren't always right!" Cora snapped too. "Commodore James Norrington was one man, one dead man, twenty-two goddamn years ago! Don't make the whole Navy pay for what he did!"

"And what did you see on that ship that made you think they aren't all just like him?"

"I saw them laugh and cry and fight and die beside me! They're human just like you and I!"

"Oh, and is that all? Do they love as we do?"

Sailors were running by them; Cora heard Jack's voice shouting orders to go to the _Surprise_. Before she could stop herself her gaze flickered to her left to see Stephen running alongside him. And her mother didn't miss it. She backed away and pulled her second pistol out of her belt, leveling it at Cora.

"So you're saying that if I gave you a choice, you'd go back to them? To him?"

"A Starre is always fixed in its course." Her heart pounded. Once it was lashes she took for a man. Would it be a bullet now?

"You aren't fit to say that now. Choose."

Cora didn't respond for a moment. She took two steps away from her mother. Then she whirled and started to run towards the captain and the surgeon.

"Momma, no!" Her sister shrieked.

There was the sharp rapport of a pistol and before the smoke had cleared Cora was lying screaming in the sand, clutching her thigh. Blood welled up from between her fingers with dangerous warmth and speed.

"Run back to him now." Arlen seethed without lowering the gun.

Blackness.

* * *

The canopy began to burn. Fire fell from above now. A pair of sailors trying to support a fallen comrade weren't moving fast enough to escape the flames. They could hear them screaming even when they burst out into the sunlight. 

There was already a pirate near them when they did get out, holding a flaming piece of driftwood. They'd used the fire to keep the sailors hemmed in so they could get into their boats. Before he could toss it onto the trees, Stephen raised his pistol and shot him dead in the chest.

"There they are!" Bonden shouted from nearby. Sailors were bursting out of the trees at random intervals, a few in flames rushing for the sea, the rest rushing towards the boats that were being launched from the shore.

"They're escaping!"

"Jack, you can't run into battle-"

Jack snarled and jerked away from Stephen, but there was no denying the truth of his words. Already he was paling and his hand still would grip neither pistol nor sword.

"To the _Surprise_!" He bellowed instead.

They ran across the sand, in the direction of their own longboats. Only one remained of the pirates'. Stephen froze when he saw who stood by it. The pirate captain had latched onto her daughter's wrist and was trying to pull her into the boat. Their mouths were wide open- they were shouting. But what? He was too far away to hear.

Cora backed away from her mother. For an instant he saw her face flicker to his. Her mother said something, then raised her second pistol. Cora made it only two steps before a shot was fired, and she lay screaming in the sand, clutching her leg.

_"Cora!"_

He had no chance to get to her. Her mother turned to the fair man beside her and he lifted Cora in his arms and threw her in the last boat. By the time they reached the spot of sand that was soaked in Cora's blood, they were already rowing furiously in the direction of their ship.

His world was a haze as he boarded the last longboat with Jack. He and Bonden took the oars and began to row, but he barely noticed the action. Jack was already shouting orders, sails were already furling in a hasty press of white, guns were running out with a rumble of fury. His orlop was already full with groaning sailors when he reached it. Even before the Surprise lurched and began to move he was wrist deep in blood and calling for sand. He tried not to think of how much blood he'd seen come out of Cora's leg.

Minutes later the broadsides started, a continuous din of shouts and breaking wood. The roar blocked out his attempts to think and he was glad of it. Then they staggered out, and there were fewer wounded streaming down. It was like a terrible nightmare.

Then, the shooting stopped altogether. As it always did.

Stephen knew even before Jack came down to the orlop and lost consciousness that they'd lost her.

* * *

A/N- Oh boy. That was an intense chapter for me. Have I got it in me to kill Cora...? I guess you'll find out, won't you? I want to give an enormous shout-out (even though I lost my voice 3 times in the last 11 days) to all my reviewers for the last chapter: **FuchsiaII**, **Kelly Tolkien**, **silverwolf of the night**, and **Snape's Opera Rose**. Keep working that magic! 


	11. The Pursuit of Happiness

A/N-- A nice extra long chapter for all of you today. I just couldn't find a place to break it off for the longest time and it just got longer and longer... my apologies! Also, fanfiction seems to be having issues with formatting tonight and won't let me put in my customary lines to break up sections. I've had to find a new way to do so, and I'm sorry if it's confusing.

----

Chapter Eleven  
The Pursuit of Happiness  
_in which some bed rest is required_

When Jack Aubrey woke at last, his head was spinning. It had been a very long time since the rocking of a ship made him feel ill, but the _Surprise_ was doing her best. He closed his eyes again, praying it would make the feeling stop.

"Drink," said a soft voice and a cool hand on the back of his neck. Water slithered down his throat and the world spun a little less.

"Stephen?"

"Who else? Lie still, joy. Sleep."

"Can't. The sails- the chase-"

"Your officers have it under control, I am sure. Rest."

He tried to open his eyes again, his left hand drifting up to touch his shoulder. He could feel thick bandages beneath his shirt.

"My wound?"

"I removed the bullet. You are in no immediate danger, so long as you keep to your bed."

Now there was a faint memory- Stephen counting each drop under his breath, the alcohol taste of laudanum in his mouth, clenching his teeth against the knife in his skin, the exhale when he felt the bullet coming free of his body, the barely registered pricks of the needle drawing the wound closed. The clearest image was that of Stephen standing over him, taking off his spectacles with bloodied hands and looking altogether too sad, too weary. He sighed and walked away, and after that Jack remembered only darkness.

"Dear, have you been watching over me all this time? Surely you must attend to the other patients."

"They are no more than an arm away, and they are accustomed to taking orders. You, Jack Aubrey, I must watch constantly lest you find a way to flee to your beloved maps and ropes and sails. Now _sleep_."

He tried to sleep. He made an honest attempt. Too many things were flying through his mind- who was in command in his stead? Did they know where the _Running_ was going? He'd have to ask Miss Turner where her next likely berth was...

That was made him open his eyes again.

"They took Cora, didn't they?" The name slipped out, propriety being forgotten in his hazy state.

Stephen must've been reading, because a book snapped shut nearby.

"Go to sleep."

This time he obeyed.

----

Jack finally made his escape the next day when Stephen went into his cabin to shave, seizing his nearby clothes and arriving on deck to a chorus of calls and joyfully tipped hats.

"Risen from the dead, he is!"

"There's our Lucky Jack!"

"Huzzah for Captain Aubrey!"

He made his way through the cheering sailors to the quarterdeck, where Mr. Mowett was waiting for him.

"Do we have a heading?" He asked quietly.

"I've kept us on the course that she was taking when we saw her last, but the wind was with her once more. We haven't had sight of her for at least a day, but we can't be far behind."

"She's undermanned and low on provisions. She has to go somewhere to pick up a crew and food." Jack retreated into thought for a moment, then came out once more. "Keep on as you have, Mr. Mowett. I'll be in my cabin."

"Aye, sir. Good to see you back on your feet, sir."

It was in his cabin, bent over his charts, that he was discovered by his erstwhile captor.

"I knew the second I stood up from your bedside you'd leave. For all love, Jack, can't you listen to my advice?"

"Do you realize that we're in the middle of a pursuit? I can have bed rest later." He bent back over his charts. After a moment, he slapped his hand on the table and stood upright. "There. Tortuga. They say it's mostly deserted now, but it was once a pirate stronghold. She'll feel safe in a familiar place. If we spread a bit more canvas, I daresay we can catch her up thereabouts."

"Yes, by all means, hasten into another battle. Get yourself shot again. Do you realize how easily you could still kill yourself with that wound? Do you realize how close it was to your heart and lungs?"

"Stephen, I'm sorry that I can't bend to your every whim at the moment. I truly am. What baffles me is that the woman you love is lying wounded on that ship and you act as if you don't want me to pursue her."

"I never said I loved her."

"You didn't quite deny it either."

Stephen fell silent once more. He sat on a nearby chair without any of his usual grace.

"The truth is that I can't stop thinking about the fact that Cora is on that ship. She told me they've never had a surgeon aboard. They must care for their own wounds. The shot she took could easily have been fatal- it could've hit any number of vital arteries. She very well could be dead right now. But the fact that I can't have her wound beneath my own to hands torments me, and I can't think on it too often or I will go mad."

"You've done everything you can for my wound, Stephen. Now let me do what I can to bring her back to you."

"No. Don't make that sound like an exchange. I will not weigh her life against yours. Do not ask me to." He laughed bitterly. "Maybe it's a blessing that I can't operate on her myself. It's hard enough for me to operate on you, and I've done it more times than I can count. It never gets easier."

Jack sighed and went to stand beside his particular friend so he could put his hand on his shoulder.

"My dear, how is it that I always find the worst thing possible to say to you?"

"Don't blame yourself. I lead you to the opportunity with alarming sureness. I believe I am a masochist in that respect."

"Only in the slightest of ways."

"Only in the most important of ways."

Before Jack could quite catch his drift, Stephen stood and left.

----

Two days later they reached the island of Tortuga and cleared the deck for action. When their spyglasses swept the harbor, though, the largest ship there was a dingy sloop with worn out grey sails.

"Sail around her. The _Running_ may have another place to hide."

It was a small island, and a matter of hours later they were all the way back where they started, and no better off for it.

"There's one other place she might go." Jack said in his cabin while they were at anchor, waiting for a heading. "Miss Turner told me that the _Running_ makes berth on the island of Alameade, a day or so southwest of here. I have no desire to follow her there- by all accounts it's still a pirate stronghold -but that is the only other place I can think of."

"Shall we chart a course for her, then?" Mr. Mowett asked.

"I believe so. Tell Bonden to set a course for south, southwest."

It should've been smooth sailing, an easy trip. Then the storm came.

For three days they were tossed and battered, at the mercy of a wrathful sea. They lost two men overboard and a third took a fall from the rigging and cracked his skull, damage that not even Stephen could mend. On the fourth day they looked upon dawn with a sort of weary relief, but no satisfaction. Where could they go from here?

Jack's final decision was to head to Port Royal, on the southern cost of Jamaica. It was only a day north of them, and he promised the crew a day or two of shore leave.

"The truth is it doesn't matter when we start the pursuit again." He confided to Stephen later. "Unless the _Running_ made port before that storm hit, she could be anywhere now."

Stephen said nothing to this. It had been over a week since they'd engaged the _Running_ just off Isla Cruces. Over a week since he and Cora spent one forbidden night in the jungle. Over a week since he saw her collapse into the sand, a scream on her lips.

That was why when he heard the calls of 'Larboard bow ahoy!' he wasn't inclined to come running up onto the deck. After some time had passed and the _Surprise_'s course had altered, Jack had to send one of the midshipmen- Mr. Boyle -to bring him topside.

When he stood on deck, it took him a moment to find the ship in question. There was no impressive spread of canvas to draw the eye- none of her sails were up. One of her masts was shorn in half. Her deck was sparsely populated, and all of them clustered at their rail to stare. The storm had been no kinder to them than it had been to the _Surprise_. But when he drew closer to their own cluster of officers, his heart skipped a beat.

The ship yards away from them was the _Running_.

For once, Jack didn't seem surprised that Stephen was at his side. Instead he lowered his glass and handed it to the doctor.

"Look."

He could hardly hold it still as he swept the deck of the ship, pausing at the face of each crew member. She wasn't there.

"What am I looking for?" He finally thought to ask.

"Do you see that pennant?"

Jack directed his glass to the stern and Stephen saw the flag in question. It wasn't as large as a normal flag and didn't look like that of any country he knew- it was a blue rectangle with a small white one in its center, and in the center of the white one an even smaller red rectangle.

"Do you know what it means?" Jack asked.

"No." Stephen lowered the glass.

"It's a code flag. It means 'requesting medical assistance.'" (1)

Stephen's hands went suddenly cold where they gripped the spyglass. Cora. The terrible wound in her leg. A dozen possibilities whirled through his head- lost too much blood, festering, a bad amputation, gangrene...

"Get me one of the longboats." He snapped the spyglass closed.

"Not yet. The captain knows that Cora told us about her little ruse and she probably doesn't want to risk flying a white flag. This could be the same trick. We have to see what her intentions are."

"We can't wait that long! Who knows how long they've been flying that flag out here? They could've needed help for days."

"I am not risking your life-"

"It's not yours to risk."

"Stephen!"

He ignored Jack's calls. He ignored the voice in his head that said he'd never be able to launch one of the boats on his own. He pushed aside the men in his way- sailor and officer alike -and went for the nearest one. He was tugging at the ropes to raise it when Mr. Blakeney rushed to his side.

"Sir-"

"Lord Blakeney if you do not intend to help me-"

"Please sir, look! They're sending a boat over."

Stephen froze in his frantic struggle with the ropes to see that a longboat was touching the water as they spoke. He watched its progress across the water, dimly aware that behind him the ship was a scarlet rush as Mr. Howard and his marines took up their positions. He could feel the cold metallic eyes of dozens of muskets behind him, but he was transfixed by the sight before him.

The boat glided closer across the crystal waters, as inevitable as fate. A woman was at the oars, with dark skin and darker hair. Before her sat the fair-haired man Stephen had glimpsed when the pirates were escaping Isla Cruces. In his arms once more was-

They reached the side of the boat and the woman held up her hands.

"We have no weapons. You have seen our flag. We knew you would not come to us, so we have brought the one who needs your assistance to you."

"Bring them up." Jack called, but he didn't stand the marines down.

Moments later they stood on deck. Moments, after over a week of waiting, wondering. Then Cora was only feet away from him. "I'm the doctor. Come with me." Stephen said, leading the man towards the hatch.

"Only if you realize that you are now prisoners of the British Crown." Jack called from where he stood.

The fair-haired man paused, then dropped his gaze to the woman in his arms.

"We all realize that. We are prepared to surrender now."

Stephen ran down to the orlop, very nearly slipping on the steps several times. The table was clear. He helped them lay Cora down, his hands lingering on her side. Her skin was a terrible shade of yellow, her pulse reedy and thin beneath his fingertips when he touched her neck. His fingers might've burned from the temperature of her body. Her eyes were moving restlessly beneath their lids, but she responded to neither touch nor call.

"How long has she been like this?" Stephen asked the man.

He hesitated to answer.

"Two days at the least. No one knows."

"What do you mean, no one knows? Wasn't she cared for?"

"Once we got back onto the _Running_ the captain left us orders to sail for Alameade and locked Cora in her cabin. We didn't see Arlen- the captain -more than three times in this past week. We all heard Cora crying out but we were under orders not to go near the cabin. Finally two days ago I led a mutiny against her and broke in. My first act was the run up that flag and wait in the shipping lane for someone to pass us by."

Stephen's mind stoutly refused to grasp this information. He'd never known such obtuseness in himself, unless it was in relation to nautical lore. He couldn't accept that she'd been left untended for a week- the medical man in him couldn't believe she'd survived.

He allowed himself to refute it. He allowed himself to believe that he could still smell the powder from the battle, that his ears were still ringing from screams and cannon fire. He allowed himself to believe that he had every chance in the world of saving Coraline Jacqueline Turner.

Then he went about accomplishing it.

----

"That's the last of the prisoners, sir. Is the prize crew ready?"

Jack turned away from the rail to face William Mowett. In the back of his head rang the sound of hammers and saws bent on repairing the _Lone Star Running_. Now that she was no longer the enemy, he allowed himself to admire her- sleek, lovely lines like his _Surprise_, perhaps a bit longer than she. There was the most beautiful carving in the rail and on the gun ports. The captain's cabin was a thing of wonder, with a real four-poster featherbed, a long gilt mirror and red velvet drapes over the windows of the stern. Whoever had commissioned it was clearly a flash cove.

_She's not a bad ship. The Service could use her. Of course that bed will have to go._ The only trouble with the cabin was that it rank of sickness and blood now. Jack remembered with more than a little worry that the scent persisted on his own ship, in the orlop. It was two days since Cora was brought to them, and every time he saw Stephen he looked a little worse.

"The bullet is out. I've drained the wound. I've cleaned it a dozen times. She still does not answer." That was all he'd say last Jack paid him a visit. Stephen was at least as stubborn in staying awake as his patient was in remaining unconscious- once everything was wrapped up here, he'd go below and force him into his hammock.

"Sir?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Mowett. I was quite lost in my own head. What do you need?"

"Sir, the last of the prisoners are secure and the worst of the damage is repaired. Do you want to send the prize crew over to the _Running_?"

"Not just yet. Give her another day and we'll have that mizzen patched up. She'll look a sight prettier coming into Port Royal with all three masts intact." He smiled and put his hand on his lieutenant's shoulder. "You aren't getting too excited about your first command, are you?"

"No, sir, not at all, sir. Very good, sir." Mowett flushed a healthy shade of pink at this; even if his post was only acting captain, it still had that beautiful, wonderful word 'captain' in it. "Sir, I'd meant to ask you- have you spoken to the Doctor? About Miss Turner, I mean."

Jack took his hand away.

"I'm about to go speak with him now. Keep an eye on everything around here, tell Mr. Lamb to check the _Running_'s hold for an extra spar. We're to raise the new mizzenmast tomorrow. She'll have to borrow a new mainsail from us, unfortunately, so send our spare over."

"Aye, sir."

The same smell that had met him in the other captain's cabin met Jack in the orlop. It was a thick scent that made the air heavier, harder to breathe, as if he were choking it down.

Cora lay in the same hammock she'd occupied before, covered to her chin. She seemed stiller than that last time he saw her, as if the great storm inside of her were no longer raging. Stephen was in a chair at her side, looking just as still. A book was in his lap. He didn't acknowledge Jack's presence when he leaned against the beam above them.

"I'm about to fall asleep on my feet, Stephen, I'm that fagged." The captain tried to smile. "You should be pleased. I suppose you still want bed rest for me."

"If you've been running about all this time and you haven't hurt yourself yet, I doubt it will make a difference."

Jack pursed his lips. Well, there was no sense in beating a course so far around the subject anymore.

"The truth is that you're the one who needs bed rest. I'll wager you haven't slept at all in these past two days. Get up now, you're away to your cabin. I'll watch over her myself if it gets you out of that chair."

"I'm not leaving her. I've tried everything I possibly can, and she won't come to me. I won't leave her until she does, or until the opposite occurs."

Jack sighed. "Stephen, look at me." The doctor complied. "If you've done everything you can then she's out of your hands. This is her battle now, and you will not serve her guilt-ridden and exhausted. You're going to bed if I have to give you an order as captain of this vessel."

Stephen blinked his pale eyes a few times, weighing the possibility of victory and the consequences of defeat, then quietly closed his book and stood, making the journey to his cabin in quick, choppy strides. Not trusting him entirely, Jack followed him.

"My God man, what a disgrace to the Service this place is. I'd forgotten how slovenly you are- that's the food they served in the galley two days ago! If you weren't going to eat it, you could've at least given it back."

"Stuff. I ate the hard tack."

"Then you could've cleaned it up. Don't throw those stockings on the floor, you creature. I do hope Miss Turner lives, you desperately require a feminine presence in your life."

"Unless the Navy's superstitious awe of cleanliness has bled over into the world of pirates, I doubt highly that she will be much better than I am."

He went about straightening up Stephen's cabin while he undressed, finding a dozen excuses to stay until the doctor was safe in his hammock.

"If you swear by your flightless birds that you're going to sleep now, I will leave you in peace."

"I do detest oaths, but I will swear this one for your peace of mind."

"Good. I'll send Bonden down to watch over Miss Turner for you. Sleep well, old soul."

He was somewhere near the door when Stephen's words caught him.

"Jack?"

He turned.

"Thank you."

That did more for his peace of mind than any oath ever could.

----

Remarkably, Stephen slept without the aid of laudanum that day. Even the watch changing failed to disturb him. It wasn't until the unremitting heat gave way at last to the coolness of night that he woke to the sound of a nearby call.

"Doctor, come quickly! She's awake."

He didn't even bother dressing and caught his foot on a splinter as he darted out into the orlop. Barrett Bonden was on his feet, but he only dimly registered this. His eyes were all for the woman in the hammock.

It was hardly the groggy awakening he'd expected. She gripped the sides of her swinging bed, making every muscle in her body rigid. Her grey-blue eyes were wide and dilated. The doctor in him had a dozen questions for her- could she feel her leg, how was her vision, did she feel the fever or was she having chills, did she feel like she could stomach a meal or was she too nauseated -but the man she'd awoken in him all those weeks ago wanted only to hold her and hold her and force the fear out of her eyes.

Cora beat him to saying anything.

"Where is she?"

"Where is who, joy?"

"My mother. When will she come back?"

Very carefully he took her hand. Her skin still burned with fever.

"My dear, there was a mutiny. The crew had to do something to save you. They gave you to us. You're very sick."

For the first time she seemed to really see him.

"Stephen..."

Her other hand extended to touch the whiskers that had sprouted on his face; she stared at the stubble in soft, abstract wonderment.

"I must look a wild man." He said softly, catching this hand too. He ignored the gaze of Bonden, who'd yet to leave- the crew knew already, in their gut. It didn't matter if they had confirmation of what they suspected.

All at once, she recoiled from him, staring as if the wild man were no longer a thing of fascination but something to fear and abhor.

"It was your fault. She said it was. If it hadn't been for you I never would've told. I could've kept lying. I could've been safe and caged instead of free."

His heart beat a little slower.

"Your mother was not a well person, Cora, you shouldn't believe what she says." It tasted sour on his tongue; he knew it was true. It had come from Cora's own lips before.

"How do you feel?" He asked to distract himself from the naked assertion. "You must eat and regain your strength. This fever has sucked you dry-" He went to touch her forehead but she made a desperate sound and tried to pull away.

"You can't touch me. She didn't. She said she couldn't. She said I was unclean, that I was worse than she ever was, that just because I was a pirate it didn't mean I had to be a whore-"

"You aren't a whore. I told you that."

"I don't remember." She was near in tears now. "I just want to sleep again."

"Do not go to sleep. You must stay awake. You'll starve like this."

She just closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears, as if the childish gesture could keep out the world.

Stephen rubbed his eyes and turned to Bonden, whose normally ruddy face had taken on an unusual pallor.

"I think I've rested long enough, Barrett."

He made his obedience and left as quickly as was decent. Very methodically, Stephen went back to the process of waking up. He put on his waistcoat and buttoned his breeches and shirt and tied his neck cloth on and pulled on shoes and stockings. He was about to shave away the two day's growth on his jaw that had so enchanted Cora, then froze with the knife in his hand. Very carefully, he set it down.

When he went back into the orlop she was still in only the lightest sleep. He recognized now why his attempts to stop the fever had failed. Her coma was self-imposed. The demons he was fighting were hers. He reflected bitterly on something Jack once told him: not everything is in your books.

He decided to close the books in his head. He sat in the chair that Bonden had vacated and simply looked at Cora, trying to unlock what made him yearn for her, why she had implanted herself in his consciousness if not his heart from the moment they met. She wasn't stunning like Diana, or fragile and sensitive like Sophie. She had Jack's force of character, but hadn't quite captured his endearing childish charm.

Then he realized it. Not everything was in his books.

He pulled the chair even closer, so that his legs were underneath the swinging hammock and he could feel her feverish heat. It made him shiver to remember that one fevered night on Isla Cruces, and while memories from it glided through him he reached out to take her hand once more.

"Once you told me you wished there was more room in the hammocks, so that both of us could fit." It was a daft place to start- there had to be somewhere better. But he had already begun and his mouth kept rolling, like a loose cannon on a pitching deck or a boulder on a hill. "I only wish there was more room in the world for us. I only wish that the pursuit of a small portion of happiness, or of peace, didn't require such retribution.

"I'd say I wish you weren't a pirate, but it isn't true. If you weren't a pirate, none of this would've happened. Because you possess that great virtue and that great vice that has no hold on me- you will reach for what you want, damn the costs. That... that is what I've been searching for." His words were to himself as much as they were to her. Her fingers curled slightly around his, like those of a child in sleep. "That is why I will never forget you. Why I-"

He couldn't bring himself to say it. It sounded too much like a good-bye. Instead he released her hand and moved the chair up.

"You were wrong. There is room for both of us. I will make room for us."

He put one arm around her unyielding waist and ignored the prod of bones. He lay his cheek next to hers on the pillow and ignored the stiffness he could already feel in his neck. He would make room for them both.

He had to raise himself up a little more to press a kiss to her cheek. Once his lips left her skin, he slid away from the world that he couldn't change, the world that might never have room enough for both of them.

When he awoke much later to a soft touch on his shoulder, Stephen thought for sure his neck had broken. He didn't have a chance to register the progress of the other sensations he'd noted on going to sleep before he heard Jack's quiet voice.

"This isn't what I had in mind as far as bed rest, Stephen."

He sighed and straightened, the magic of his earlier realization gone and leaving him feeling juvenile and strangely empty. But before he could allow the jaded feelings collecting inside him to form words on his tongue, his hand brushed the cool skin of her throat.

_The cool skin-_

"Her fever's broken." He whispered with the same relief he'd felt when he pulled the bullet free of his own skin, when the Acheron struck her colors. It was the relief that came at the end of a very long pursuit.

----

A/N-- Hmm, everything seems to be okay now. There was even some fluffiness (GASP!) in this chapter! Of course that means yours truly has been up to no good in the next installment... reviewers get an extra ration of grog!

(1) This is one of the few bits of nautical lore I actually know off the top of my head (I'm slightly less lubberly than Stephen!) There's a code flag for every letter of the alphabet (alpha, bravo, charlie, etc.) and each has a specific meaning. Ironically, the flag that signals 'requesting medical assistance' is named Whiskey.


	12. A Question of Salvation

A/N-- Wow. I actually have nothing to say. That's odd. Enjoy!

Once more, the dividing lines aren't working. Apologies.  
------------------

Chapter Twelve  
A Question of Salvation  
_in which a dynasty falls_

The world was an endless expanse of blue the next day, a world in which anything might have been possible in the perfect sphere of sea and sky if it weren't for the hollow blue eyes Stephen was looking into.

"You must eat, Cora. I've given you your fresh air, and now you must pay the piper."

She spared a glance for him and looked disdainfully at the plate he held.

"My stomach won't countenance it."

"You must try to eat. It doesn't matter if your stomach rejects it later- at least try."

She sighed and accepted a piece of bread, chewing on the crust and looking back over the taffrail. When she awoke fully she'd asked for fresh air, and Stephen carried her onto the deck in a bundle of blankets amidst a flurry of rather disconcerted sailors. Jack had calmed them and Mowett brought two chairs for their comfort.

It was only natural for Cora to put her feet in Stephen's lap, since she couldn't very well rest them on the ground. The blankets that covered her made it easy for Stephen to put a companionable hand on her calf, which he rubbed every so often when she seemed in danger of slipping inwards once more. She took his hand out of the sight of the others.

Their attention shifted now to the ship anchored alongside them, which had burst into a flurry of shouted orders and running sailors. Jack had gone over to the _Running_ not long after they appeared on deck to supervise the raising of the new mast, and to Stephen it seemed a rather complicated and dangerous business best left for the safety of dry land. It was taking far longer on the _Running_ than it had on the _Polychrest_, when Stephen last saw the process, and Jack seemed more frustrated now than before.

Cora finished her bread and settled further into her blankets, her toes curling over Stephen's thigh and then releasing. He sighed quietly enough that it was likely she didn't hear him; she was still looking to the _Running _with saddened eyes. The day could've almost been perfect; their own deck nearly quiet, the breeze wafting around them, and no pressing need for haste. He felt, as he always did when Cora was near, that he could remain in that particular place forever.

"Unless you eat some of the ham Killick gave us, I will be forced to take you back to the orlop." He hinted out of the masochistic urge to break the spell of the moment, and also out of the desire to take her back there anyway. He wanted very much to kiss her- recently it occurred to him that he hadn't kissed her since that morning on Isla Cruces, and it seemed to him that he should have.

To his disappointment, she sat up and reached for one of the items in question, and settled back to eating it. When it was done and no more progress seemed to be made on the _Running_, she whispered to him that she was ready.

He carried her back to the orlop and set her in her hammock, removing the blankets briefly to check the wound and her pulse.

"You should get some more rest. We'll raise Port Royal tomorrow."

"The Turner side of my family is there." She said softly. "Your captain may be able to get me my pardon with their help."

"It may be that he needs permission directly from England. Your case might need to be heard." He said in vain, knowing full well the powers Jack had as captain of the _Surprise_.

"Maybe." She whispered back.

He covered her up once more and, after the briefest of hesitations, leant down to kiss her softly. He'd expected her lips to feel resistant against his, that her desires were contrary to his that day, but instead they yielded softly to him, inviting a deeper touch. They remained there for another moment, and then Cora pulled away.

"Will you take me to your cabin?"

As much as Stephen's body flushed with heat at the thought of what she was suggesting, he couldn't countenance such a risk.

"My dear, I do not think you're well enough to-"

"I didn't mean that. I only... I heard you speak to me when I was sick. You said you'd make room for us both." She gave him a small smile. "I have an idea that's a little better than yours."

Out of curiosity more than everything else, and ignoring the voice in his head that said this was madness, Stephen lifted her once more and carried her into his cabin. He hesitated once he was there, unsure of what she wanted.

"Put me down by your desk. I can balance on my left leg there." He did so reluctantly. "Lie down on the hammock."

One he'd complied she made it to his side in one enormous bound, gripping the hammock fiercely to keep her balance. He sat up to steady her and his swinging hammock. Catching her drift, he swung his legs over the side and then took hold of her waist. With their combined efforts, she managed to scramble on top of him, many times nearly taking them to the floor. They clung together in the swaying hammock, waiting for a steady world that they could share. As it quieted their bodies relaxed and Cora stretched languorously on top of him; their bare feet brushed as she ran one hand through his short hair.

"Maybe there is room for us after all." He murmured.

She only kissed him in response, and then settled with her head on his shoulder into sleep.

-----------------

Cora knew something was amiss when she woke. Maybe it was a shift in the action on the deck above her, the calls of nervous sailors, or maybe it was the sudden stiffness in the man beneath her, the change in his erstwhile regular breathing. She couldn't say accurately what she was. But she woke with ice in the put of her stomach.

"Perhaps we should-" He said, noting that she was awake.

"Not yet." She lay her head back on his chest with a soft sound of contentment, praying his warmth would be enough to melt her unspoken fear away.

There was no doubt that three hour span- it must've been three hours, they were two bells into the current watch when she drifted off and she heard eight bells now -was the best she'd slept since leaving Isla Cruces. It wasn't just the absence of pain in her leg; it was the complete and utter contentment that enveloped her with Stephen's arms. She never slept well without someone else nearby- she and Ashli always shared a bed -as if the presence of another human being could keep away the monsters.

She felt no peace now that she woke, even as one of his hands glided slowly up and down her back and he kissed her hair absently. Stephen told her about the mutiny, and she deduced that it was James Starre- her mother's brother -who'd led it. The ex-captain was in chains on her own ship, a ship that had surrendered. She should've felt safe no matter what. Very soon she would be free to do what she wanted. And that was the most haunting thought of all.

She raised herself once more, intending to drown herself in Stephen's kiss, when they heard the sound of rattling chains and footsteps above them.

"That is never a welcome sound in our world." Stephen murmured, but she was already struggling to escape the hammock. It was an awkward business, and for a moment she had to put her weight on her right leg. There was a flash of agony but more importantly of memory- her mother's cold blue eyes, and that awful moment just before she pulled the trigger. The sudden realization that she would likely die for the unforgivable sin of falling in love.

"Cora?" He put one hand on her elbow and the other on her waist to steady her, but more importantly to bring her back to the world of the living. "Have you reopened the wound?"

"No." She managed to say. "Get me to the door."

Stephen went to pick her up once more but instead she slung one arm over his spare shoulders and hobbled with him out into the orlop. They were just in time to meet Jack and Mr. Howard.

"There you are, Stephen. The most awful thing has happened while you were hiding out down here. We were aiming to raise that new mizzen and one of our thrice damned landsmen let go of his rope at the most inopportune moment, and the whole thing collapsed to the deck. The _Running_ has been very badly damaged. Our men are doing everything they can to save her, but I thought it prudent to move the prisoners down here to the orlop since our brig is out of commission. Will you mind the intrusion? It will only be for two days at the most. We're going to leave them in Port Royal to face their fate. The idea of stringing them up at the yardarm myself is distasteful- I wouldn't do that to the old_ Surprise_."

That would explain the rattling they'd heard. Cora looked in the narrow space between the captain and the marine while Stephen gave his answer. The rattling was mostly done now as the armed lobsters escorted their prisoners to the dark corner. Her heart ached at the sight of every one of them- her uncle James, Anamaria, ancient Cotton and his fourth interpretive parrot (this one more foul-mouthed than most), and a dozen others she'd known from birth. Secretly it was waiting for the blow that would fall. It was waiting for the woman who knew her before her birth.

Then her heart stopped.

"Is that all of the prisoners?" She asked suddenly. Both Howard and Jack turned around with vague confusion at her frantic tone.

"It ought to be," Mr. Howard said. "We cleared the ship of everyone but Mr. Lamb and his mates and the sailors at the pumps."

Her heart began to work again. It began to pound every cold drop of blood through her body.

"Then where is my mother?"

----------

Stephen was the last one to get up on deck, having taken a handful of seconds to sit Cora down and beg her to stay where she was that the other men spent dashing out of the orlop. He rejoined them as a longboat was being prepared and took two pistols from the nearby bucket. Jack, Mr. Howard, and five of his marines were the rest of the party.

"I knew there was something amiss when Joe didn't come over with us, I knew it, I knew it," One of the marines kept saying, as if it could bring his missing mate back.

"Quiet there, Mr. Nolan." Howard hissed. "Calm yourself, man."

Their boat touched the water and Nolan calmed himself by taking up the oars with another marine.

"Handsomely now," Jack whispered. "As quiet as ever you can."

"Weapons at the ready." Howard added.

Stephen was the first over the side, by virtue of his continuous mishaps with climbing aboard a ship. For a few moments every man below was more worried about him falling over than they were about the murderous pirate they'd just noticed was gone. It was almost absurd.

Once on deck he raised his pistol, scanning for any sign of life. Jack was next to join him, and after that Howard and the marines in rapid succession. The deck was treacherous now, and they slid several times as they began to traverse it. The mast had fallen at an angle, thank God, so as not to cleave the ship directly in half. The starboard bow was utterly wrecked and even towards the middle of the ship Stephen could look down and see the lower decks. By strange fortune the mast had slid off the slanted deck and down into the sea, meaning that only the cracks below the waterline left them in imminent danger of sinking. Given Stephen's dislike of swimming, it was an uncomfortable thing to realize that while they searched the ship for said murderous pirate, it was slowly succumbing to water beneath them.

"We'll search the ship one deck at a time, as a group. Leave no cranny unmolested."

By the time they were done searching the deck they were already on, Stephen's hand was slick with sweat on his pistol. It was a sort of relief to descend through one of the hatchways into the deck below them, where it was cooler. More precious time spent searching- still nothing.

The deck below that was filled with the rank scent of death. Every heart pounding, they rounded the corner, following the stench.  
They discovered Mr. Lamb and his mates, their tools forgotten in their hands, the seawater around them red with blood. Every throat was cut.

"At least the worst of the damage is repaired. She'll hold for now." Jack's voice came low and soft in the relative darkness. They could hear the pumps working elsewhere in the ship. The other sailors were safe.

The brig wasn't far away from their current position, and when they moved back towards it they found the missing marine with his throat in similar condition to the carpenters'. Nolan was quietly sick nearby. One of his other companions went to his side and was speaking in a soft voice.

"The blood of those poor men was still warm. I felt it." Howard said to Jack. "Sir, it's possible she is still on this deck. We must press on."

Jack nodded.

"Tend to your man first."

As they spoke both the soft murmurs and the retching had stopped. Howard reached the two marines and stood next to them, bending over slightly at a word from Nolan. He waved his hand wildly for them to approach, then pointed down at their feet.

A trail of blood led away from the body of the marine, whose bayonet was also red.

They followed it as quietly as they could back to the scene of the carpenters' deaths, where for a moment they lost it in the confusion of blood. They picked it up again heading in the same direction, this time thicker. Stephen was strangely relieved at the sight; she'd have to be feeling weaker now, and with any luck the wound was already fatal. But why was she heading this way instead of for the upper decks?

The trail continued for some time through the twisting corridors of the ship. The eight men followed in single file, with Mr. Howard at the head and Jack and Stephen behind. They walked so closely together that when Howard stopped Stephen found himself with a mouthful of Jack's uniform.

"What is it?" The captain hissed.

"The trail stopped." Howard said. "There's no more blood."

"She must've bandaged the wound." Stephen ventured.

"What do we do now?" This from Nolan in the rear.

Jack stood silent in thought for a moment, then nodded to himself and spoke. "We keep on this tack. There's a dead end up ahead. She must be in the next room. Spread out now, with myself and the doctor behind you, and prepare to fire."

True to Jack's word, there was only one way to go from there, and they took every step with the greatest care, counted every heartbeat in the fear that it would be their last. At last they reached an inconspicuous door whose handle was crimson and warm.

Jack and Stephen stood to the back of the room, their pistols ready, while Howard and four of the marines fanned out in front of them. Nolan went slowly to the door, rested his hand on it for the briefest of moments, and then flung it wide and prepared to stab with his bayonet.

They were met with a dark, empty room.

At a signal from Howard, Nolan crept into the room with his musket still at the ready. He went into the middle and turned in a slow circle, then looked back helplessly at the others. Howard made another signal and he and the marines headed into the room, Jack and Stephen behind them. With all of them inside it was terribly stuffy and dark. They were in one of the very lowest parts of the ship and somewhat forward Stephen thought, but he wasn't entirely sure of where.

"I don't understand." Nolan whispered. "There was nowhere else for her to go."

"Except for backwards."

They turned too late. The door was shut and a lantern that was closed opened. She stood just to the side of the door, the lantern aloft.

"You murdering bitch!" Nolan screamed, his musket going off in a flare of heat and smoke.

"Do not fire!" Jack shouted, tossing the weapon away from the enraged marine. "Don't you see where we are standing?"

The stuffy room was suddenly still, as if everyone had stopped breathing.

"Where are we?" Stephen asked, befuddled by the sudden fear in the eyes of the other sailors.

"We're standing at the entrance to the powder magazine." The pirate smiled. "One wayward spark, and we all go to visit Davy Jones. And I'm holding a lantern full of fire."

Every heart in the room slowed at those words, as if by beating less they could sustain themselves.

"What do you want?" Jack's voice came hoarsely in the dark.

"I want you and him," She gestured to the captain and Howard. "To go back to your ship and tell them that the _Running_ is safe now. Send my pirates back over here, and do not attempt to pursue us, or I will kill every man standing in this room now." Like lightening she drew the cutlass in her belt and drove it up under Nolan's ribs. He fell to the ground wide-eyed and pale, blood trickling from his mouth.  
"And that," She said. "Is to prove that I'll do it."

Stephen was on his knees beside him out of instinct, and if for nothing else than to close his eyes in final rest. When his task was done he met Arlen's eyes with a strangling hatred inside of him. She met his eyes and frowned slightly; then she seemed to put something together at last in her head and smiled.

"Ah, so you are the surgeon. Good. I almost hope the captain here doesn't obey me. It would be such a joy to kill you." She leveled her cutlass at him. "A very great joy."

He heard Jack's shout and felt the sudden movement behind him, but then the lantern fell.

It happened before anyone saw it. Jack's lunge had been interrupted in favor of throwing his coat on the growing fire. He didn't see it. Howard and the marines were bent in similar task. Even Stephen, caught strangely in the crossfire with nowhere to turn, didn't see it. Yet they all noticed at the same time, about when the flames were out, that Arlen Starre was no longer on her feet.

It looked like a mirror had been brought into the magazine. The two women poised atop each other were nearly identical. It was only the difference in their dress that separated Cora from Arlen.

A pool of blood was spreading towards them, joining Nolan's. Arlen smiled up at her daughter.

"Pirate," She spat, and then lay still.

Cora staggered to her feet, withdrawing the knife they'd found in Kevin Andersen's body from that of her mother and dropping it to the floor. She reached for the pistol Arlen had drawn. As she sat back on her heels, staring at the body in disbelief, she leaned it idly against her temple, her bloody finger poised on the trigger.

Stephen crawled to her side and replaced the gun with his lips, having learned that fate was not something to toy with.

----------

Cora had torn open her wound again in her frantic race to reach the _Running_, probably when she was swimming. That was when the agony started. She'd nearly fallen crawling up the ship's side.

It had taken her too long to decide to follow the eight men who'd gone over to find her mother, and while she cursed her indecision at the time it saved them in the end. If she'd been earlier she would've been just as trapped. Instead she opened the door to the powder magazine in time to see a marine dead on the floor and a cutlass at Stephen's throat.

There was no question of what she had to do. Not then anyway. It was almost an accident, the way they both fell to the ground and the way Cora's knife sunk deep into her mother's chest as if that was its natural home. And then her dying curse- _pirate_. The knowledge that even if she was free on paper inside she would always be branded.

When she rested the pistol she took from her mother against her head, she'd contemplated pulling the trigger. It seemed so easy to just give in. But then Stephen was there with his arms around her and a kiss, murmuring that she was bleeding and she needed to rest. She did give in- but only inside.

She had vague memories afterwards. Stephen carrying her back aboard the ship, laying her in her hammock and caring for her wound. Giving her another kiss. Later on bringing her soup. His eyebrows drawn in consternation when she tried to reject the spoon, as if feeding someone shouldn't be so hard. He'd almost made her laugh.

Then James came to see her, waking her with a touch of his hand on hers and the rattle of his chains. She was vaguely aware of a marine behind him and she knew he'd come to say good-bye- knew that he and the rest of the crew were going to prison for her salvation. It didn't worry her too much. There wasn't a prison built that could hold their crew for long. Some of them might dance for the hangman, but not all of them. Never all of them. She was so safe in this knowledge that most of what he said was nothing more than meaningless, soothing sounds. She was nearly asleep, in fact, when his lips made sounds that were like bullets into her stomach.

"Your mother always loved you, Cora."

She was wide awake now, staring straight at her uncle.

"Would she love me for killing her?"

"She would love you for saving her."

She laughed.

"Cora, what happened wasn't your fault-"

"I stabbed my mother in cold blood. I think that's the baldest definition of patricide there is."

"That's not my meaning. Our Lone Star was destroying herself these past twenty years. She was probably destroying herself from the moment she was born. Who knows how much longer it could've gone on without her taking us down too?" James sighed. "As daft as it seems you saved her, Cora. You saved all of us."

The thought unsettled her more than it assured her. Even after James left, Cora found that sleep remained just out of her grasp. She flitted from the shoals of unconsciousness into the choppy waters of awakening more times than she could count. It was only when Stephen resumed his place at her side and took her hand in his that she slipped away at last.

---------------

A/N-- There you have it. Our almost resolution. But where does this turn of events leave Cora and Stephen...? Read and review to find out in the last chapter! Huge hugs and M&M's to my reviewers (**FuchsiaII**, **Kelly Tolkien**, **silverwolf of the night**, **Oriana** and **Snape's Opera Rose**). And yes, you do get an extra ration of grog.


	13. But Not Forever

A/N-- We've reached the end. Ironically, this is the first full chapter I wrote of this story. I hope everyone enjoys it, and thank you in advance for reading! 

This chapter contains some Rated M-ish content. Once again, ye be warned.

I was really struck by two songs that fit the mood of this last chapter- "Good-bye to You" by Michelle Branch for Cora and "No Need To Argue" by the Cranberries for Stephen. Listen to them if you like and keep this in mind!  
------------------  
Chapter Thirteen  
But Not Forever  
_in which a journey ends and a sojourn begins_

"...because of your outstanding cooperation and your recent service to the Crown in killing a dangerous fugitive and known pirate, it is with pleasure that I declare you, Coraline Jacqueline Turner, a free woman."

A few people clapped at Jack's improvised speech, Blakeney and Mowett loudest of all. The former prisoner herself just bowed her head in thanks.

It was no surprise that the ship found it hard to rouse any kind of excitement, as the announcement of Miss Turner's freedom came after the reading of the names of Lamb and his mates and before the orders to make sail. As soon as the meager clapping faded the deck was all but cleared. Miss Turner had disappeared from the quarterdeck in the first run- Jack had moved her from the orlop to the great cabin out of a long overdue sense of propriety -but the doctor remained looking a little lost.

"'e's lost for good, he is." Joe Plaice's voice, low as it was, nevertheless managed to startle his relative as he came to stand behind him at the helm.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Bonden responded, although everyone knew.

"It's just what happened wif Davy Jones and all," Joe continued. "'e fell in love wif a woman as untamable as the sea. And look where it landed him."

"I don't know how you can believe in the Bible and stories like that at the same time." Bonden said, although everyone did.

Plaice: I do believe the Bible, and I say she's doubly trouble. We already had our Jonah, I don't know what we done to get ourselves stuck wif another, but I say she's done her job. Sooner she's gone the better.

Bonden: She saved us.

Plaice: One good deed don't cancel all the bad ones. I heard as that old Andersen said that just before Davies gave him the word to try and do her in. Too bad the good doctor smoked it, I say.

Bonden: You forget that he saved your life too. Your idea of gratefulness is right on its head.

Plaice: It ain't the same thing. The doctor is a right good man- he hasn't got sins to pay for. Not many, at least. Not like her. Christ above, I'll be glad to see her go.

Bonden turned in time to see the figure that had been left alone at the entrance to the great cabin approaching the quarter deck once more. They both made their obedience to Doctor Maturin and fell silent out of respect to his silence. The dark shadows of sharks trailed them and he seemed to be watching them; it wasn't a surprise, considering that no one hoped for dolphins anymore.

It was strange to see him alone; she was always with him at the taffrail. The sacredness of the space had leant itself to them, and even though most days Bonden had his back to them it was only natural to sense their closeness to each other and to him. When after some time the surgeon left once more, the sense of loss he felt only grew.

"I'm not sure you're in the right, sir," Barrett Bonden said. "I'm not sure what this ship will be like without her anymore."

The conversation ended once more as the quarterdeck's other holy occupant approached. More obedience- a grave nod.

"Bonden, give me the helm. One of the prisoners has asked permission to go and retrieve something from the _Running_ before we send it on to Port Royal. He was damned secretive about it, so I'll trust your discretion." One of his pistols was pressed into the coxswain's waiting hand.

"Of course sir." He tipped his hat again and saw the tall golden-haired man standing on the larboard rail, waiting with sadness in his eyes. It was only when they sat in the boat skimming across the waves that he thought to look back to the quarter deck, and as he recalled Joe Plaice's words already it seemed a little less holy.

---------

Stephen didn't know how long he stood at the door to the great cabin before he found the courage to knock. The unspecified amount of time was spent half in wondering when the last time he bothered with the formality was and half in wishing he had an elephant he could bring to the door as he had with Diana. As he knocked he reflected that it might be a good thing- they all saw how that one reached its bloody conclusion.

There was just enough time for Stephen to draw himself from his reverie and wipe the sweat from his brow before Cora opened the door just enough to allow him the sight of her face. She said nothing.

"I had wondered if you'd like to take a turn on the deck." Stephen said, wishing there was something else he could say.

She waited another eternity.

"No. I'm not feeling well."

"Not feeling well?" Out of reflex he went to touch her forehead, but she drew back with a flash of anger in her eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"I was trying to determine if you have a fever."

"Don't you realize where we are? This isn't a game."

"I'm afraid you've misunderstood my intentions entirely. This isn't a game. You must remember that I am a doctor as well as a man and if you aren't feeling well then I have twice as much reason for concern." He lowered his voice, realizing that the few men on deck were shooting what they thought were covert glances in their direction. "And if you're so averse to me touching you do you want me to be only a doctor?"

She opened and closed her mouth several times, a thousand emotions and thoughts racing over her face in the space of a few short moments. Then she opened the door to the cabin and pulled him inside, slamming the door behind him. He had barely another moment to breathe before she kissed him, a kiss so hard it seemed to be equal parts hate and love.

He pulled back just enough to soften the kiss without breaking away from her and held her face between his hands. She seemed so fragile between his palms, as if she might break if he held too tightly. Her fingers curled around his wrists soft as a dream and she kept kissing him until the pulse he could just feel beneath his littlest fingers slowed just a little.

"They all know." She whispered. "Don't you see it? They know."

"You said so yourself," He responded, leaving a ghost of a kiss on her forehead. "The morning after. Is that why you're afraid to take a walk on deck?" She nodded slightly and he kissed her again. "Love, you already knew. Don't be afraid."

"There's a difference between knowing it and seeing it in their eyes. Even in the captain's eyes."

Stephen waited before he answered.

"This isn't about what they think. It's about what your mother thought."

She recoiled from him like Jack from a snake, like a vampire from a cross.

"You should leave."

"Your mother was wrong about you-"

"You don't know what she thought of me."

"I see what she thought of you in your eyes. And it's not what I see when I look at you. I see someone worth so much more than they were told."

"Stephen-"

"No! You reached for me, you wouldn't let me go and now it's my turn. That's what you taught me, Cora. You taught me that sometimes one must become a pirate-"

He tried to touch her again but she took another step back.

"Get out. They're still staring."

Stephen never got the chance to respond to her fearful eyes or her pointing finger. The door at his back sprung open and Mr. Mowett nearly ran into him.

"Beg pardon, Doctor. Miss Turner, you should come to the larboard rail."

Stephen tried to take her arm as she hobbled out the door after the lieutenant but she pulled away. She made it all the way to the cluster on her own and stood beside Jack at the rail.

Stephen caught up moments later, as the longboat was near enough to the Surprise to make out Bonden's impassive face and the parcel laid on his chest. He appeared like a warrior laid on his funeral pyre. Jack was shouting orders for poles to go over the side and guide the boat closer to the Surprise's side, and for a few stout sailors to go lift Bonden and his package.

"Why was he on the _Running_?" Stephen heard Cora ask Mowett.

"One of the prisoners- your uncle, I believe -wanted to get something from her before we sent her on ahead. Bonden was sent with him."

"Then where's my uncle."

That was the discomforting question on everyone's lips, considering what had almost happened the last time they lost one of Cora's relatives.

At last Bonden was aboard and Stephen cleared a circle around him. It only took a moment of searching to find the contusion hidden by Bonden's ample curls. The butt of a pistol or perhaps the hilt of a cutlass, and a blow executed by someone who knew how to send a man into unconsciousness without struggle. It wasn't meant for a killing blow.

"He'll live," Stephen declared. "Someone help me get him below."

Jack was already organizing Howard and the marines for a second foray onto the Running when Blakeney's voice rose above them all.

"Sir, what about the package?"

Most of the movement on deck stopped and all of it slowed as every eye scanned for the unobtrusive brown thing. Jack found it near his feet and lifted it to read the scrap of paper on front.

"It's for Miss Turner," He said softly.

She came forward as she had earlier in the day, but this time she had no idea if she reached for benediction or damnation. Stephen eyed the parcel and the way it passed between their hands. It seemed to have some heft to it, but it wasn't particularly large- a rectangle perhaps half a foot on one side, two inches on the other, and two inches thick. It was wrapped clumsily in canvas and twine.

With trembling hands she opened the folded parchment and read aloud.

_Cora-_

_You can have the last piece. In a perfect world all the rest would've been yours too._

_With all my love, and your mother's,  
James Starre_

Every body was still as she tore away the twine and let the canvas flutter to the ground. In her hands she held a narrow, polished piece of wood that everyone recognized as part of the railing of a ship. Those closest could see the names carved in it: Lone Star and Black Wolf.

"You can have the last piece." Cora whispered again. Then her eyes widened in sudden understanding and every muscle in her went rigid.  
"No!"

It was at that moment that _the Lone Star Running_ exploded.

The _Surprise_ came alive with shouts and calls, men running for buckets of water and attacking every wayward spark and flaming piece of wood. Stephen felt no fear at the falling embers. Bonden was awake and moving off unsteadily on his own, promising to see the doctor soon, and Stephen was at Cora's side.

She knelt on the deck, one hand clinging to the railing of the _Surprise_ and the other to the piece of wood in her hands. The last piece. At some time she'd lost her bandana and now she had nowhere to hide. She shook as Stephen knelt behind her and put his hand on her shoulder- at first he thought to look to her wound but then he remembered that he was not only a doctor but a man as well, and then he looked to her eyes. It was then that he saw she shook because she was finally crying.

------------------

It was some days after the suicide of James Starre and after they left the prisoners in Port Royal when they made love again. Stephen was coming back into his cabin after dinner with the gunroom when he saw her sitting on his hammock, her breeches lying nearby on the ground. She was looking at her wound, then looked up when he entered. Their eyes met and the days that had passed melted- they could've been back on Isla Cruces from the way she clung to him, from the way his fingers explored the bend in her knee and the softness of her thigh as if he'd never touched them before. The silent days between, when she hid in the great cabin from heartache and he stayed away from fear of rejection, might never have happened.

It was deep in the night, and everything had a hazy sort of quality. Stephen was kissing her one moment, and then she was on top of him, sliding down and then up, joining them and then wrenching them apart. The hammock swung with the weight of her moving on him, but they never felt in danger of falling; Stephen held her tight around the waist, and Cora kept him grounded.

Release caught him off guard, and he shut his eyes and clenched his teeth to stop himself from calling out. As his breathing slowed, Cora moved to lay on top of him, her head beside his on the pillow. He spread his hands wide over her back and stroked the sweaty skin; he hadn't feel her shudder above him when he climaxed and was about to ask her if she did, but she kissed him sweetly just as he would've spoken. She still had not broken the connection of their bodies.

Some time later Cora came off of him, their skin sticking where it had been pressed together, and moved to stand at the door of the cabin.

"Bells at night are the most lonesome sound." She whispered, hearing the watch changing.

Stephen came to stand behind her, his arms about her waist, and kissed her pale shoulder as she had kissed him on their first morning together, trying to wake her as she had woken him.

"Come back, joy."

He took her hand and led her back to their warm, swinging hammock, and she resisted only a little. They were still for only a moment or two, lying pressed close on their sides, and then Stephen gathered all her hair in his fist and kissed Cora hard, sliding back inside her at the same time without knowing when either of them had become aroused again. He didn't stop until he felt her shake and strain not to call his name- he wished she had -and then they both fell into a boneless state of relaxation.

Cora slid down a bit so she could rest her head under his chin as they had on the night they first kissed. Stephen realized as she teethed on his collarbone absently that the whole night had been spent trying to return to previous moments, previous sensations, and wondered what line they had crossed and when; he fell asleep holding Cora and knowing all too well that they were too far away and far too late to step back over it.

They rose in and out of sleep together, wakened by small things like one another's shifts or a sleepy sounding murmur. When they heard the bells again, he felt Cora try to rise but held her back. Privately, he disagreed with what she had said before; the loneliest sound wasn't that of bells echoing over the empty sea, but of her breath when she was trying to hold back tears.

-----------

He knew before he knew, of course. It was something in the way she moved, in the way she paused climbing the rigging to look out over the sea in the direction they had come, in the way she touched his body and looked into his eyes as if she were trying to memorize him.  
Jack just had to say it out loud when they docked at Nassau and the two of them were sitting together at the taffrail. He couldn't let Stephen try and delude himself, try and deny the feeling deep in his gut that no surgery or physic could remove.

"There are many ships leaving this harbor, Miss Turner. I'm sure you could find one to wherever it is you're going."

Cora glanced at the captain for a moment and then surveyed the rest of the crew, who glowered back. No one wanted a woman aboard, even a free one. Her eyes rested on Stephen for the longest.

"I'll have to look around." She replied, her gaze flickering between Stephen and Jack once more.

As they were disembarking, they managed to meet by accident in the crowds at the dock, hidden in the shadow of the _Surprise_. They stood close together, hands twined, and kissed very lightly.

"I need to think, Stephen." She whispered against his lips. "I need... I need to think."

He nodded and kissed her again, with more pressure this time, like he could pressure her into making the choice he wanted her to.  
She pulled back but kept holding his hands, and looked like she wanted to say something. Stephen shook his head and pulled her in for another kiss. They held hands until it became impossible; Cora had walked too far away. She turned back to look at him once, and then kept walking down towards the shore with her arms around herself.

Stephen tried to tell himself that she was only thinking; thinking implied a problem, and a problem implied a crisis, and more than one answer. She was torn, and he was the one tearing her. It gave him a perverse sort of pleasure. She wanted him, she-

He didn't even let himself think the word. He had known what she wanted to say before she walked away. It was the same thing he'd wanted to say to her when she lay fevered in the orlop and he was desperate to see her grey-blue eyes once more. It was the thing that they might never say, but would always lay inside them.

He knew before he knew, of course. Still, it made his heart stop when he saw her in his cabin that night with a small satchel in her hand, sitting on his desk, her eyes serious in the light of one solitary candle.

"I've found a ship."

"Does she have a name and a captain that are terribly prone to very bad puns?"

Cora shook her head. Stephen swallowed thickly.

"Where is she bound?"

"England."

Stephen actually laughed, and for quite a long time. Cora looked away as if in shame.

"Why can't you simply stay with us? We are bound for Portsmouth, Jack received his orders today."

"It could be months before we get back from what I've heard of Lucky Jack Aubrey."

"So will you meet me at the docks waving a handkerchief when the _Surprise_ does return?" He asked with half-hearted hope. "Shall I write you long love letters at sea?"

"I have to go." Her voice turned frantic without warning. "I couldn't be that woman- not now. Maybe not ever. I couldn't stay home make you stockings or have dinner waiting. I've spent my whole life at sea. It's in my blood. But no ship is going to take me. I can't go back to being a pirate, or even a privateer. That life is over." She made a miserable sound and sat on his desk. "I don't belong anywhere."

"That's-" He couldn't finish it. He sat and watched her for just a moment, and realized it as surely as she had. She was an anomaly, like a tropical bird adrift in the arctic, the last of her breed.

He sat beside her on the desk, just far enough away to feel a stranger.

"So you're...?"

"Tomorrow morning. I couldn't wait any longer. If I did..."

"Would staying here be such a terrible thing?"

"Stephen-"

"I'm sorry." He said, taking her hand.

She pulled her hand away, then guided his so it rested on her cheek. She turned to kiss his palm, and then his wrist. She undid every button on his vest and pushed it off him, then drew his shirt over his head, and set his spectacles carefully to the side. His damask stock fluttered to the ground. Every movement was a tempo somewhere between fast and slow, not urgent but not languorous. He almost called it matter-of-fact, and then realized it was deliberate. He already had her shirt off and bent to her breast, making her fingers tremble as she tried to unlace his breeches.

In the end he had to stand so his clothes could come off, and when they were both naked and gleaming in the candlelight, he was at just the right height to push himself inside her, still sitting on the desk. Her legs went around his waist and pressed him further. Her head sought his shoulder and she clung to him for that breathless moment when they were simply joined, unmoving. And then he stirred and broke the moment; her legs tightened around him, driving him inside hard enough to hurt, and still not hard enough, not fast enough, because nothing could erase the conviction in her head. They muffled ragged gasps with a ragged kiss.

Cora leaned back slowly from Stephen as he drew himself out of her. She cried out suddenly, and not in pleasure this time, as her hand landed in the pool of hot wax forming on his desk. In instants he was the doctor, checking to make sure she hadn't burned herself. He saw nothing worse than red skin, and became the lover again and kissed it very tenderly. The candle shuddered and died.

"I'm sorry." He whispered in the darkness.

Cora sat up and ran her hands down the length of his body, over his chest and the plane of his stomach and along his thighs. Her right hand drifted to rest over his heart as she replied.

"So am I."

-----------

He knew before he knew, of course, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell when he watched her go. He hurt all over, a desperate soreness, as they readied the boat that would lower her down. It was a dull, slow, steady ache.

When it was ready, the whole crew backed away, even Jack. For a moment it was awkward, just the two of them standing there at the edge of the wooden world that was the _Surprise_, the boat swaying in the air beside them as ominous as a storm cloud, but then their eyes met and it was the most natural thing in the world.

They both felt the tears. It gave Stephen a moment of confusion- it wasn't the first time a woman had brought him to tears but it was the first time it had happened with witnesses present. He'd almost recalled himself when Cora smiled and laughed and cupped his cheek, wiping them away.

"Did you know my mother used to say the whole ocean was made of tears, and that was why it was salty?" Her hand slid down to grasp his neck and she pulled him close so that their foreheads leaned together. "No more tears, dearest. Don't cry. I've never seen you cry. I already had a picture of you in my mind, the one I want to remember, and you'll spoil it now."

"And what picture was that?"

"Do you really want the whole crew to know?"

They both laughed, and then Cora wrapped her arms around Stephen's waist under his coat. She was tall enough with her boots on that they stood almost cheek to cheek.

"Don't cry," She whispered in his ear, leaving a butterfly kiss on the rim. "I'm leaving now, but not forever. No parting is forever."

It was those words, and not a good-bye, that were the last she spoke. Unconscious of the crew behind them, Stephen caught Cora's lips one last time. It wasn't a satisfying kiss- brief, dry. The wind was picking up, tangling Cora's hair, swaying the boat enough so that it creaked, reminding them it was time.

Everyone knew they were ready- but could anyone ever really be ready for something like this? -and so two crewmembers stepped forward to lower the boat. Stephen glanced at the rest of the crew and expected them to be anxious with the fear of losing the tide, but they only stood with their eyes cast down like witnesses at the site of an accident.

Jack helped Cora into the boat and she touched her knuckle to her forehead in a brief salute. He nodded to her and then stepped back to allow them to lower it.

They barely made it two feet when something went wrong with the pulleys. Stephen wanted to take it as a sign of divine intervention but stopped himself. He almost ran to the railing but held himself where he was. He already had his image of her in his head, the one he wanted to remember forever- and it was of her standing before him with the wind in her hair and tears on her face, smiling.

In the end it was the image of her stepping out of the boat and onto the shore and walking away without looking back that never left Stephen Maturin. It remained before his eyes for so long he wasn't even aware that the _Surprise_ had started moving until Jack came to stand beside him and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Shall we go and play, Doctor? I'm with child to play that Corelli you like so much."

"No," Stephen replied. "But a little Vivaldi wouldn't go amiss on such a fine day."

Jack smiled knowingly and clapped him on the shoulder, then walked away, leaving Stephen at the railing once more. He wanted to imagine he could still see Cora on the shore but he had lost track of the exact spot. There was still a dull ache in her absence, and the dry tears were pulling his skin tight around his skull. He mused a moment on her comment- that the whole ocean was made of tears. It was disheartening to think that the world had seen so much sorrow. At the same time it was comforting- they were not alone in theirs.

Stephen turned away from the railing and caught the sound of Jack tuning in the great cabin. He must've left a window open on purpose, trying to call him down and away from the empty boat laying idle on the deck, salt water leaking out around it. Oddly enough, no one had gone to mop it up yet, and it remained a sacred place of piratical disorder on the otherwise pristine world of the H.M.S _Surprise_.

He'd join Jack soon enough. He was content to be alone for now. Because he knew before he knew, of course, that they would have to part... but not forever.

_-Fin-  
_--------------------

A/N-- I really hope you all enjoyed this fanfiction, because it has been an absolute joy to write. It's been such a joy that it has, in fact, spawned a sequel. DUN DUN DUN! Make sure to keep a weather eye out for _Saltwater for Blood_!

I must give an enormous shout-out to all my reviewers-

**FuchsiaII**, who was there from the very beginning

**silverwolf of the night**, who was there even before that

**Kelly Tolkien**, for her enthusiasm and general Irish-ness

**Snape's Opera Rose**, for making me laugh

**Oriana**, for discovering it when I needed support the most


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